Partisanship in a Nonpartisan Election

Although Austin city council elections are nonpartisan, the highly-charged politics that envelop Austin have turned several city council runoffs into partisan affairs. In southwest Austin, District 8 candidates Ellen Troxclair and Ed Scruggs epitomize the partisan conflict also evident in some other districts. In a recent Austin American-Statesmen, Marty Toohey highlights the nature of the conflict by listing the endorsements for each candidate:

Their endorsements further underscore their differences. Scruggs’ include Central Austin Democrats, the Austin Progressive Coalition, and the next Travis County judge, Sarah Eckhardt, a hard-charging liberal who won her November election in a landslide. Troxclair’s include Republican Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty, the Home Builders Association of Greater Austin and a rare local endorsement from Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, Michael Quinn Sullivan’s influential group; one of her campaign fliers encouraged voters to pick Republicans Greg Abbott (for governor), Dan Patrick (for lieutenant governor) and herself.

In the November 4 election, Troxclair won a position in the runoff election by garnering 26.38 percent of the vote. Ed Scruggs won 25.55 percent of the vote, which secured him a place in the runoff. Of the five candidates in District 8, there were two Republicans—Troxclair and Bray—and three Democrats—Scruggs, Pierce, and May. Of the five candidates, only two emphasized their partisanship, and they were the candidates who will compete in the runoff election.

Since this is the first runoff election under the 10-1 plan, there are many unknowns: What will be the turnout? What will be the composition of the electorate? Which party is favored in the district? I’ll consider each question, starting with the one about which we know the most—the last question. According to the Austin American-Statesman, District 8 is a swing district. Indeed, in 2012, President Barack Obama won 51.54 percent of the vote to Romney’s 48.46 percent. However, in 2014, Democrat Wendy Davis won the district with 55.10 percent of the vote to Republican Greg Abbott’s 44.90 percent of the vote. Table 1 shows the 2014 gubernatorial vote in each of the precincts in the district:

Table 1: Gubernatorial Vote in City of Austin District 8 in 2014.

Voter Precinct	Greg Abbott	Wendy Davis	ST Rep	% RV Gov	ST Dem	% DV Gov
301	164	346	74	45.12%	170	49.13%
302	759	780	322	42.42%	324	41.54%
303	742	684	361	48.65%	319	46.64%
304	1,041	1,095	493	47.36%	448	40.91%
307	434	459	182	41.94%	242	52.72%
314	1,451	811	834	57.48%	337	41.55%
315	843	1,001	395	46.86%	408	40.76%
317	729	725	321	44.03%	310	42.76%
330	806	649	353	43.80%	280	43.14%
338	1,119	1,266	554	49.51%	585	46.21%
339	311	627	135	43.41%	269	42.90%
347	701	773	284	40.51%	328	42.43%
349	919	1,283	437	47.55%	592	46.14%
351	211	493	85	40.28%	224	45.44%
354	948	1,304	440	46.41%	549	42.10%
356	167	498	78	46.71%	228	45.78%
358	552	1,481	225	40.76%	678	45.78%
360	768	1,144	356	46.35%	513	44.84%
362	505	982	221	43.76%	448	45.62%
363	391	511	162	41.43%	211	41.29%
364	924	1,051	427	46.21%	491	46.72%
365	411	441	220	53.53%	217	49.21%
366	997	1,435	460	46.14%	651	45.37%
367	1,412	1,395	654	46.32%	655	46.95%
368	0	0	0		0
H230	0	0	0		0
442	0	0	0		0
Total Vote	17,305	21,234	8,073	46.65%	9,477	44.63%

Bold/Italic Precincts=split precincts

% Rep V Gov=Percentage of vote for Abbott that was the straight-ticket vote.

% Dem V Gov=Percentage of vote for Davis that was the straight-ticket vote.

Predicting turnout is especially tricky during the December holiday season. Perhaps knowing the early voting total on December 12^th will help, but the accuracy of any prediction is questionable. However, I’ll try. In the November general election in District 8, the early vote constituted 60 percent of the total vote. I’m assuming that the percentage will be approximately the same in the runoff election. If the assumption is correct and early vote in the district is 8,901 (see table 2), then total vote will be 14,835, which is 68.88 percent of the total vote in the general election.   

Table 2: Early Vote Estimate for District 8 from the Travis County Clerk’s Web site

Precinct	Early Votes	RV	% TO
301	47	505	9.31%
302	157	599	26.21%
303	64	42	152.38%
304	705	4,281	16.47%
307	104	379	27.44%
314	330	2,397	13.77%
315	424	2,294	18.48%
317	179	1,147	15.61%
330	6	71	8.45%
339	397	1,887	21.04%
347	605	2,873	21.06%
349	710	4,993	14.22%
351	226	2,012	11.23%
354	841	4,498	18.70%
356	141	2,052	6.87%
358	605	4,875	12.41%
360	663	4,368	15.18%
362	578	2,956	19.55%
363	370	1,609	23.00%
365	80	1,107	7.23%
366	775	4,875	15.90%
367	894	5,531	16.16%
368	0	0	0.00%
Total	8,901	55,351	16.08%
Does not include Precincts 338 & 364, which are split precincts with 17 registered voters.
Does not include Hays County precincts, which contains no City of Austin registered voters.
Portions of Precincts 301 and 303 are outside of the City of Austin.

Who votes determines the composition of the electorate. Which party’s identifiers were more motivated? Which candidate had a better ground game—voter contacts and methods of mobilizing voters? Which candidate will win? The answer to that question comes Tuesday night, December 16^th.