Precinct analysis: SD07

I was going to save this one for later, but given the mostly fawning profile that just ran in the Statesman, plus my own recent tweaking of him, I suppose now is as good a time as any to analyze the performance of Dan Patrick in SD07.

To be honest, I wasn't planning to even run the numbers in this one. The district is pretty monolithic, and it's not like Patrick's opponent (and onetime financial backer) Michael Kubosh ran any sort of campaign against him, so I didn't think there'd be anything of interest there. But I reached the end of the State Rep districts and had a little extra time on my hands, so I figured what the heck.

And I'm glad I did, because I didn't get the result I had expected. I thought Patrick, given his celebrity status, universal name recognition, and (let's be honest) high charisma level, would be the pacesetter in his district. I fully anticipated seeing him at the top of the heap.

I was wrong. By any reasonable measure, Patrick's performance was mediocre when compared to his fellow Republicans. Take a look at how he stacks up to the statewide and countywide candidates:

Candidate     Votes    Pct   Opponent    Votes

==============================================

Abbott      125,195  74.23     Van Os   43,457

Hutchison   123,420  73.60  Radnofsky   44,270

Combs       123,070  73.37       Head   44,672

Dewhurst    120,539  72.93   Alvarado   44,731

Kaufman     120,491  71.80     Pierre   47,326

State GOP   118,883  71.65  State Dem   47,049

Cong GOP    118,480  71.34   Cong Dem   47,607

Patrick     117,975  69.19     Kubosh   52,531

Keller      117,578  70.32     Molina   49,629

Bacarisse   117,377  70.71      Shike   48,630

Patterson   117,042  71.41    Hathcox   46,848

Staples     116,591  70.72    Gilbert   48,277

Ames Jones  115,698  70.48      Henry   48,456

County GOP  114,251  69.01 County Dem   51,297

Willet      110,812  67.60      Moody   53,100

Recall that every statewide race save for Keller-Molina had a Libertarian in it as well; there was no Lib in SD07. I'd guess that Patterson and possibly Staples would have surpassed Patrick otherwise. Patrick did do slightly better than average at the county level, but then so did Kubosh - he garnered more Dem votes than everyone except for Sharp, Moody, Garcia, and Green.

Note also that the combined GOP Congressional vote exceeded Patrick's total. This provides a nice comparison, since every precinct in SD07 is also in either CD02, 07, or 10. Here's how that broke down:

Candidate     Votes    Pct

==========================

Poe          24,289  74.72

Binderim      8,217  25.28


Patrick      22,514  69.07

Kubosh       10,084  30.93

----------

Culberson    61,433  68.22

Henley       28,614  31.78

Patrick      60,749  67.05

Kubosh       29,854  32.95

----------

McCaul       32,758  75.25

Ankrum       10,776  24.75

Patrick      33,443  74.61

Kubosh       11,382  25.39

Patrick got a teensy bit more votes than McCaul, but Kubosh got almost as many votes more than Ankrum, so the percentages favor McCaul, who as with the statewides and like Culberson and Poe had to contend with a Lib candidate as well.

Want more? Here's how Patrick compares to the various State Reps who faced a contested election:

StateRepGOP  Votes   Pct  StateRepDem  Votes   Pct

==================================================

Harless     14,885 74.62         Khan  5,064 25.38

Patrick     14,896 73.54       Kubosh  5,360 26.46


Murphy       8,234 66.70      Thibaut  4,111 33.30

Patrick      8,094 65.47       Kubosh  4,269 34.53

Wong         1,965 53.76        Cohen  1,690 46.24

Patrick      2,049 57.80       Kubosh  1,496 42.20

Woolley     19,806 71.75        Brann  7,799 28.28

Patrick     19,461 69.34       Kubosh  8,605 30.66

Spivey         186 31.79     Hochberg    399 68.21

Patrick        193 33.33       Kubosh    386 66.67

Bohac        2,336 63.79      McDavid  1,326 36.21

Patrick      2,283 61.60       Kubosh  1,423 38.40

Riddle      22,384 70.23    N-Turnier  9,487 29.77

Patrick     22,177 69.54       Kubosh  9,713 30.46

Total GOP   69,796 70.03    Total Dem 29,876 29.97

Patrick     69,153 68.87       Kubosh 31,152 31.13

The totals are smaller here because some of the State Rep districts in SD07 were uncontested. Patrick did do better than Sylvia Spivey and Martha Wong. I think that's the definition of not saying much.

The point I'm making here is that despite everything that he had going for him, Dan Patrick performed only slightly better than the average anonymous downballot Republican judicial candidate. He got only a few more votes than the second tier Republican statewides, who had to contend with greater dropoff and third-party candidates. He failed to match any of the three Congressmen (in a year where Congressional approval levels threatened to dip below those of the Ebola virus) and most of the State Reps. In short, the only remarkable thing about his performance was that there was nothing remarkable about it.

And remember, he was running against a fringe candidate who did no visible campaigning and reported zero dollars raised during the race. Really, if anything stands out in all these numbers, it's how much better than the other Dems Michael Kubosh did. Some of this can be explained by the lack of a Libertarian to serve as the not-Republican alternative, but not all of it. At the statewide level, there were generally about 5000 votes cast for the Lib in the SD07 precincts. You'd have to transfer all of those votes and then some (about 1000 more for the lower tier races, 3000-4000 for the top four) to Kubosh to balance things out. Maybe Kubosh did pick up all those votes, I can't say for sure. As there was no reason to vote for Michael Kubosh, the one explanation that makes sense to me is that there was a small but dedicated group of people who just wanted to vote against Dan Patrick. Didn't matter who the alternative was as long as it wasn't Danno. Kubosh was the beneficiary of that. Who knows, maybe if Kubosh had been a real candidate who ran a viable campaign, he might have done even better. I don't expect to find that out in a district like SD07, but maybe we will someplace that isn't so brightly red, say statewide. (Not that such a thought has ever occurred to Danno. Oh, no, not him.)

Anyway. You just never know what the numbers will say. That's what makes this so much fun. Tune in tomorrow for another installment in this series.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on November 29, 2006 to Election 2006 | TrackBack