Texas Triangle: Part 2

 The map is a reminder of the counties that comprise the Texas Triangle.

An initial examination of the Texas Triangle includes a correlation between ethnicity and the Biden vote in 2020. Since Biden did poorly among Anglos and less well than Hillary Clinton in 2016 among Hispanics, one might expect those correlations to be modest. Biden and other Democrats have had trouble with support from Anglo voters in Texas for some time, drawing a small percentage of their votes since the realignment of Anglos in the 1990s and 2000s. So the correlation is expected to be negative and fairly strong.

Remember that correlation shows a relationship between variables, and the correlation can be spurious and meaningless. But, ethnicity is a factor in voting behavior as well as partisanship, and thus, it should indicate where Democratic candidates are doing well and where they can improve.

This table shows the data from which the correlations were constructed as well as the Pearson Product Moment correlations of the Biden vote with each ethnicity category:

The negative correlation between the Biden percentage of the vote and the Anglo percentage of the population was expected. The correlation is the strongest of the three correlations, indicating that Texas Democratic candidates need to work on their appeal to Anglo Texans. The correlation for Hispanic Texans is stronger than for African American Texans, which I did not anticipate. Traditionally, Democratic candidates receive a greater percentage of support from African Americans than from Hispanics. Democratic candidates need to improve their support from both ethnic groups.

These results suggest where Democratic candidates need to improve their support as well as the counties that offer the most promise in turning Texas "Blue." 

The Texas Triangle

It’s not as dangerous as the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia, but it could be nearly as dangerous for Republicans in future Texas elections. I believe that it’s where the efforts to identify and turn out Democrats should be concentrated.

The Texas Triangle includes 67 of Texas’ 254 counties. It includes counties that connect The Dallas—Fort Worth Metroplex, San Antonio, and Houston. It’s basically outlined by the interstate highways that connect the Metroplex with Houston (IH 45), Houston with San Antonio (IH 10), and San Antonio with the Metroplex (IH 35). Although it includes only 25.4 percent of Texas’ counties, it contains 74.4 percent of Texas’ projected population in 2019. That’s 21.6 million people.

To get an idea of the demographics of these 67 counties, an alphabetical list with the ethnic composition of the population of each county as estimated in 2019 follows:

Where does the work need to be done to flip Texas, turning it Blue? Here are the results of the 2020 presidential election in those 67 counties:

This is the beginning of a series of posts on organizing to create a Blue Texas. It's a antidote to Wayne Thorburn's Red State: An Insider's Story of How the GOP Came to Dominate Texas Politics.

Party Identification in Texas

 The October 2020 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll indicates little change in party identification in Texas preceding the November 3rd general election. The question is: Generally, do you consider yourself a Republican, Democrat, or Independent? The follow-up question for independents is: Do you consider yourself a pure independent or do you lean towards the Republican or Democratic Party? For partisans, the question is: Do you consider yourself a strong or not so strong Republican (for Republicans) or do you consider yourself a strong or not so strong Democrat (for Democrats)? 

The result is this seven point scale:

The strong Republicans exceed the strong Democrats by 4 percent, but otherwise, the percentages are similar between the two parties. Independents, depending how you count "leaners," are either 13 or 37 percent. The Texas Poll considers "leaners" as partisans because their voting behavior is similar to weak partisans, and in fact, they are actually more likely to vote for the party's candidates than are weak partisans. I, on the other hand, consider "leaners" as independents who most recently have opted to vote for the candidates of a particular party and that is what this question evokes from the respondent. If I am correct, the percentage of Republicans is 33 percent, and the percentage of Democrats is 30 percent, which is in the margin of error for the poll.

Analyzing the 2020 Texas Election: The Absence of Straight-ticket Voting

 In 2017, the Texas Legislature voted to eliminate straight-ticket, or one-punch, voting in Texas, but it did not go into effect until 2020. So, this election was the first without the ease and simplicity of voting a straight party ticket for Republican, Democratic, or Libertarian candidates.

When considering the effect of straight-ticket voting and its subsequent elimination, political scientists agree that voting will take longer to vote and that down-ballot contests will be affected to some extent by a larger roll-off than was experienced when straight-ticket voting was an option. Straight-ticket voting offers a heuristic method that allows people with limited information about the candidates to cast a rational vote, assuming that the party nominates candidates who reflect the party’s values and beliefs.

In Texas, straight-ticket voting was credited with wholesale shifts in the party affiliation of judges when counties swung from one party to the other party. For example, Dallas County experienced the effect as early as 2006, and Harris County felt the effect in 2016. Baker Botts LLP, a leading Texas law firm, noted the results after the 2018 general elections.

Democratic candidates have been making steady gains in urban district court races for years. Democrats already controlled every judgeship among Dallas County’s 39 district courts and Travis County’s 19 district courts, but they created a major shift in Harris County, winning all 37 district court seats that were up for election, each previously held by a Republican. Together with their 2016 sweep of all judicial races, judges elected on the Democratic ticket now control all 60 district benches in the state’s largest county. Only in Tarrant County (Fort Worth), where all 26 district judges were elected on the Republican ticket, and Bexar County, where Republicans still hold 5 of 27 district judgeships after a Democratic sweep on Tuesday, are there any Republican judges in the state’s largest five counties.

 

As a growing number of suburban counties in Texas have shifted from Republican to Democratic, additional counties experienced a loss of incumbent judges, many of whom had provided years of excellent service to their communities. In the studies of straight-ticket voting conducted by Austin Community College’s Center for Public Policy and Political Studies (CPPPS), the effect of straight-ticket voting on the electoral fortunes of District Court judges, who are elected countywide, were chronicled.

There was an anticipation that the absence of straight-ticket option would benefit Republican judicial candidates in district court contests in large urban counties, where Democrats had established a dominance in recent elections. The Republican Party’s hope was that roll-off would favor their candidates and staunch and ultimately reverse the trend of Democratic Party dominance in urban counties.

The roll-off rate did increase with the elimination of straight-ticket voting, but the increase was not as dramatic as Republicans had hoped. The table shows the roll-off rates in Harris, Dallas, and Tarrant Counties in the contested District Court contests:

As the table indicates, roll-off increased (In 2018, roll-off was less than two percent generally). In 2020, the roll-off in Harris County averaged 5.2 percent. In Dallas County, the roll-off averaged only 2.3 percent. In Tarrant County, the average roll-off was 4.2 percent.

The absence of straight-ticket voting in 2020 in major urban Texas counties begs the question: What was the effect? As Bruce Tomaso notes, the result was not what Republicans had hoped:

With all Harris County voting centers reporting, Democrats won all 14 civil District Court races on Tuesday’s ballot. In five of those 14 contests, the Democratic candidate ran unopposed; four of those five unopposed Democrats were incumbents.

In recent Texas elections, Democratic voters, and in particular Democratic minority voters, far more often voted a straight ticket than did their Republican counterparts. In those Texas counties where Democrats at the top of the ticket do best, including Harris and Dallas counties, straight-ticket voting was thought to confer a big advantage on down-ballot Democratic candidates, including candidates for the district court bench. Thus, the abolition of the straight-ticket vote was seen by many Republicans as giving hope to GOP candidates in down-ballot races.

The blue sweep in Harris County continues a trend that Republican leaders, including Nathan Hecht, chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, find troubling.

In 2016, Democrats won 23 of 23 state district court races in Harris County. In 2018, it was 24 of 24.

Hecht, in his 2017 State of the Judiciary message, decried that among the GOP’s district court candidates who lost in 2016 were 11 sitting judges.

“Such partisan sweeps are demoralizing to judges and disruptive to the legal system,” he wrote.

Importantly, the effect has expanded into suburban counties surrounding the five largest Texas counties. Fort Bend County provides an example of the blue sweep making its way into suburban counties, even without straight-ticket voting. Although the roll-off rate in the four District Court contests averaged 5.9 percent, Democratic challengers defeated all four Republican incumbents.

The Republican candidates in 2020 outperformed President Trump, with the exception of James Shoemake. Democratic candidates, on the other hand, underperformed Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden by an average of 19,439 votes. Nevertheless, every Democratic challenger prevailed.

The table below illustrates what has happened in Fort Bend County to Republican District Court candidates since the 2016 presidential election

In 2016, Republicans Brenda Mullinix and David Perwin ran unopposed. In 2020, both were defeated by Democratic challengers. In 2016, Republican Maggie Jaramillo defeated her Democratic challenger, but in 2020 she lost to her Democratic challenger by almost exactly the same margin.

In Tarrant County, which Biden barely won, the roll-off for Democratic candidates averaged 37,073 votes. The blue sweep obviously hit the rocks in Tarrant County. The incumbent Republican judges held all of their positions.

 

Despite the absence of straight-ticket voting, Democratic District Court candidates performed well in most urban counties. Where Democratic judicial candidates increased their vote was in those counties where Biden won by a healthy margin, and the suburban trend toward Democratic Party gains continued.

In many respects, the 2020 was unique. First, there was the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, early voting was extended from twelve to eighteen days. Third, and possibly most important, Trump was a polarizing figure, and as a result, most voters knew for whom they were going to vote well before election day. An indication of the interest and mindset of the voters is the fact that nearly 87 percent of the total vote cast occurred during early voting.

Nevertheless, the absence of the straight-ticket option did not result in a huge roll-off, and in the counties presented here, the Republican judicial candidates actually outperformed President Trump, and Democratic judicial candidates did not perform as well as former Vice President Biden. There is no doubt that the elimination of straight-ticket voting did not provide the boost to Republican judicial candidates that Republicans had hoped that it would. In the 2022 midterms, perhaps Republican candidates will see an improvement in their fortunes, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Analyzing the 2020 Elections (part Trois)

 Perhaps the greatest disappointment for Texas Democrats in 2020 was the failure to win control of the Texas House. In 2018, Texas took twelve seats that had been in Republicans’ hands. That put Texas Democrats within nine seats of winning a majority in the 150 member Texas House. Since the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senator had carried several Texas House districts in his bid to unseat Republican Senator Ted Cruz, Democrats felt energized.

Professor Mark Jones, writing for the Rice University Institute for Texas Politics, listed six Texas House Districts as toss ups: Shaheen (R-HD 66), Leach (R-HD 67), open seats in HD 92 & HD 96, Button (R-HD 112), and Davis (R-HD 134). The so-called Beto Nine included Davis (R-HD 134), Meyer (R-HD 108), Button (R-HD 112), Bohac (R-HD 138, Shaheen (R-HD 66), Leach (R-HD67), Miller (R-HD 26), and Stucky (R-HD 64).

In addition to the Beto Nine districts, Democrats targeted thirteen House Districts that Beto lost by ten percent or less in 2018. The complete list is in Table 1:

Table 1: Texas Democratic Party Targeted Districts

Source: Texas Democratic Party: Texas Democrats Announce 22 Targeted State House Districts Ahead of 2020 | Texas Democratic Party January 2020

Note the location of the targeted House Districts. Five are in Harris County; five are in Tarrant County; two are in Dallas County, two are in Collin County, two are in Fort Bend County; and one is in each of the remaining counties: Denton, Bexar, Bell, Brazos, Nueces, and Brazoria. They are best described as core urban or suburbs to those core urban counties.

What were the results in those counties and districts? In Harris County, the House District that was most supportive of Beto in 2018 also resulted a Democratic flip of the District. One of the more moderate Republicans in the Texas House, Sarah Davis, was defeated by Democrat Ann Johnson. Harless also won reelection.

In Dallas County, Meyer retained his seat in the Texas House, winning by one percent. Button also retained her seat, winning by less than one percent of the vote. In HD 138, Republican Hull won by three percent.  In neighboring Collin County, Shaheen and Leach won reelection by one and three percent, respectively.

In Tarrant County, Republican David Cook won in an open seat by five percent in HD 96; Goldman won reelection in HD 97; Matt Krause won reelection in HD 93; Republican Jeff Cason won an open seat contest in HD 92; and Tony Tinderholt won by four percent in HD 94.

In Fort Bend County, Republican Jacey Jetton won an open-seat contest in HD 26, and Republican Gary Gates won an open-seat contest in HD 28.

In Denton, Bexar, Brazos, Nueces, and Brazoria Counties, Republican representatives won reelection. In HD 54, which includes Lampasas County as well as Bell County, Stucky was reelected.

  Although the Democrats picked up one seat, one of the twelve Democrats elected in 2018—Gina Calanni—was defeated by a Republican challenger (Mike Schofield), which means that the partisan composition of the Texas House in the 87^th Legislature will be 83 Republicans and 67 Democrats, exactly the same as in the 86^th Legislature.

In some contests, the Democrats came close to defeating incumbent Republicans. For example, Brandy Chambers came within 222 votes of defeating Angie Chen Button. Other contests in which the Republican margin of victory was fewer than 5,000 votes included both contests in Collin County, two contests in Harris County, one contest in Fort Bend County, and three contests in Tarrant County. Those nine contests could have provided the necessary nine-seat gain that Democrats needed to control the Texas House. Should Democrats take solace in these contests?

Perhaps the best conclusion is that Texas Democrats are competitive in Texas House races in the suburban counties surrounding the core metropolitan counties but winning additional seats will require more organization and a coordinated ground game. And the way to achieve that goal for Democrats is to adopt the system employed by Blue Action Democrats. The SWATX Blue Action Democrats have established a model based on precinct organization and block captains, who work their neighborhoods to identify and get out the vote for Democratic candidates.

BLUE ACTION DEMS - Blue Action Democrats

 

Analyzing the 2020 Texas Election (Part Deux)

In the presidential contest in 2020, Texas was considered a swing state. According to 270 to win (https://www.270towin.com/2020-polls-biden-trump/), the average of six polls conducted through November 2, 2020 showed Trump with a slim 1.3 percent advantage:

Many analyses placed blame on poor polling, Trump supporters misleading pollsters, and other reasons that deemed Texas’ division between Democrats and Republicans closer than it actually was. The final results show Trump winning Texas with 52.2 percent of the vote to Biden’s 46.4 percent. The 5.8 percent difference showed that Texas was indeed competitive. What differences in the campaign would have resulted in a Biden win in Texas?

The most common analysis maintains that Texas nothing would have helped because Texas remains a “Red State” with a majority of voters preferring the policies and programs supported by the Republican Party of Texas and its candidates. Others have noted that Texas is divided among the Democratic urban core of Texas, the rural Republican strongholds, and the battleground area of suburban Texas. This is the argument of Blue Metros, Red States, which was recently published by Brookings Institution.

In Texas, the division among the three components of Texas was close enough that an expansion of votes could have resulted in a Democratic win of Texas’ 38 Electoral College votes. In the previous post, I noted that 30 percent of registered voters in Texas did not vote. That constitutes 5.7 million voters. If more of these nonvoters had been mobilized in certain counties, the results could have been different.

In the ten largest counties in number of registered voters, 3.2 million registered voters did not vote. That constitutions 56 percent of the registered voters who did not vote. In some of those counties, voter turnout was more than 70 percent of registered voters (Travis, Fort Bend, Collin, and Denton). However, Harris, Dallas, Bexar, and Hidalgo Counties were below the average turnout of 66.5 percent turnout. If those counties had achieved the average turnout and those nonvoters had been identified as potential Biden voters, Biden would have added 175,000 votes. Of course, Biden still would have been more than 400,000 votes short of the number necessary to defeat Trump. Gaining those additional votes in the urban core, but additional votes in the suburbs could also have been garnered.

	Trump/Pence		Biden/Harris
County	Early Votes	Total Votes	Early Votes	Total Votes	Total Votes	Total Voters	Turnout
HARRIS	607,040	699,771	810,106	911,913	1,633,557	2,480,522	65.86%
DALLAS	262,198	306,572	527,822	597,407	917,245	1,398,469	65.59%
TARRANT	351,885	403,271	357,565	403,698	820,157	1,212,524	67.64%
BEXAR	266,145	303,871	397,338	440,823	756,039	1,189,373	63.57%
TRAVIS	140,321	159,907	403,939	432,062	602,889	854,577	70.55%
COLLIN	229,730	250,194	213,187	227,868	485,323	648,670	74.82%
DENTON	202,732	221,829	174,573	188,023	416,610	565,089	73.72%
EL PASO	64,886	81,235	143,224	168,801	254,029	488,470	52.01%
FORT BEND	143,623	157,595	180,197	195,191	356,908	482,368	73.99%
HIDALGO	75,077	89,925	110,840	127,391	219,433	391,309	56.08%
	2,343,637	2,674,170	3,318,791	3,693,177	6,462,190	9,711,371	66.54%
EV % TV	87.64%		89.86%

 

In the 11^th through 20^th largest counties, Trump won 56.5 percent of the vote. Among these ten counties are several suburban counties in which Democrats could have won a larger share of the vote and reduced Trump’s margin of victory. There are 770,000 registered voters in these counties that did not vote. As an example, Hays and Williamson Counties, suburbs that are southwest and north of Austin, could have provided additional voters, although the number is less than 150,000 votes.

	Trump/Pence		Biden/Harris
County	Early Votes	Total Votes	Early Votes	Total Votes	Total Votes	Total Voters	Turnout
WILLIAMSON	123,803	138,649	132,612	142,457	287,092	376,672	76.22%
MONTGOMERY	167,808	193,224	65,877	74,255	271,175	370,060	73.28%
GALVESTON	84,668	93,306	53,326	58,247	153,843	228,482	67.33%
BRAZORIA	80,822	89,939	56,749	61,780	154,037	224,256	68.69%
CAMERON	40,303	48,834	54,592	63,732	113,635	218,910	51.91%
BELL	53,404	67,113	47,880	56,032	125,559	215,974	58.14%
NUECES	55,697	64,467	53,921	60,749	126,984	211,652	60.00%
LUBBOCK	69,740	78,560	35,103	39,757	120,204	183,320	65.57%
HAYS	42,289	47,427	54,200	59,213	108,822	152,840	71.20%
MCLENNAN	47,719	59,432	31,185	36,550	97,617	149,461	65.31%
	766,253	880,951	585,445	652,772	1,558,968	2,331,627	66.86%
EV % TV	86.98%		89.69%

 

Another source of additional votes would have been voters in heavily Hispanic counties in South Texas. Twenty counties in Texas have a population that is more than 75 percent Hispanic. Two of those counties, Bexar and Hidalgo are among the ten largest counties; therefore, I exclude them from consideration. Among the remaining eighteen counties, the average percentage of the vote for Biden was 56 percent of the vote to Trump’s 40 percent of the vote. Four years earlier, in 2016, Hillary Clinton received 69.4 percent of the vote to Trump’s 30.6 percent. Thus, Biden’s advantage was 13 percent lower than Clinton’s advantage. The appeal to Hispanic voters by Democrats was ineffective, and Texas Republicans emphasized issues that appeal to Hispanics as well as depicting Democrats as too liberal for Texas.

If Texas is to turn Blue in some future election, Democrats will need to expand their appeal to Hispanics, foster neighborhood organizations of activists that are active throughout the election year, and expand their reach into he suburbs that surround their urban cores. Is a Democratic incursion into statewide offices in 2022 possible, or is Texas destined to remain a red state in which rural voters continue to provide Republican candidates with the votes necessary to overcome the Democrats’ stronghold on the urban core and expansion into the suburbs?