Targeting 2008: Pete Sessions

This is the first in what will surely be an irregular series of analyses of Texas Congressional districts. My main interest will be the seats that I think are at least potentially competitive for 2008, but I'll likely go beyond that as well. Time permitting, of course.

This Texas Observer article about some of Rep. Pete Sessions' more ethically interesting friends (also spotted by Digby is the impetus for today's piece. Sessions, as you know, won an incredibly expensive and nasty battle with Martin Frost after the 2003 DeLay re-redistricting, coming home with 54.3% of the vote. Last year, running against a lesser known but not completely unfunded challenger in Will Pryor, he captured 56.4%, in each case with a Libertarian running as well. Given Dallas' strong blue shift in 2006, and given that Sessions is currently the biggest target standing at which Dallas Dems can aim, it seems fair to assume that he'll face a stiffer fight in 2008. Let's dive into the numbers and see what we can learn from last year's race.

All data comes from the Secretary of State numbers. Everything is done on a straight R vs D basis, so percentages may look skewed. I have the 2006 numbers in this spreadsheet, and the 2004 numbers in this one.

As I've said in previous posts that analyzed Harris County races, I'm going to go by countywide race data wherever I can, as it provides a bigger data set as well as one with less variation. Generally speaking countywide Democratic candidates fared better, so in the comparison to an individual race like CD32 I think it gives a clearer picture of the relative parties' strengths. Where I can't easily use that data, I'll sub in the top and bottom statewide races to give a range; that's Hutchison/Radnofsky and Willett/Moody.

With all that out of the way, let's get started. There were 26 contested county races in the SOS sample. I'd have died of carpal tunnel syndrome trying to break them all out for individual comparison, so instead I aggregated them. Here's a summary of that picture:

Candidate     Votes    Pct

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

Hutchison    79,000   63.4

Sessions     71,461   57.8

County GOP   67,807   57.4

Willett      63,704   54.5


Moody        53,250   45.5

Pryor        52,269   42.2

County Dem   50,374   42.6

Radnofsky    45,679   36.6

Basically, Sessions was about an average countywide Republican in CD32. As every statewide Republican other than Don Willett did better than that percentagewise, I find that encouraging for the Dems. It says to me that Sessions isn't particularly beloved, or at least that his money didn't buy him extra love at the ballot box. For comparison purposes, CD32 was a smidge under 60% GOP in 2004, with Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez winning slightly over 42% there.

Things get very interesting at the State Rep level:

Candidate    Dist   Votes   Pct

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

Goolsby       102   8,423  58.4

Sessions      102   9,061  62.8

Willett       102   8,050  59.4


Miller        102   5,990  41.6

Pryor         102   5,361  37.1

Moody         102   5,502  40.6



Harper-Brown  105   6,267  58.0

Sessions      105   6,479  58.9

Willett       105   5,835  55.7

Romano        105   4,530  42.0

Pryor         105   4,520  41.1

Moody         105   4,638  44.3



England       106   3,199  50.5

Sessions      106   3,722  58.3

Willett       106   3,215  52.9

Hubener       106   3,137  49.5

Pryor         106   2,658  41.7

Moody         106   2,867  47.1



Keffer        107   2,537  50.6

Sessions      107   2,982  57.4

Willett       107   2,541  52.8

Vaught        107   2,477  49.4

Pryor         107   2,209  42.6

Moody         107   2,270  47.2



Branch        108  13,108  71.3

Sessions      108  12,676  67.4

Willett       108  11,387  64.7

Borden        108   5,229  28.7

Pryor         108   6,127  32.6

Moody         108   6,214  35.3



Hartnett      114  13,475  56.6

Sessions      114  14,368  58.8

Willett       114  13,040  56.6

Shinoda       114  10,313  43.4

Pryor         114  10,079  41.2

Moody         114  10,009  43.4

In the districts where the Dems ran a strong candidate for the State House - in particular, Hubener in HD106 and Vaught in HD107, with Miller in HD106 not far behind - Sessions outpaced his local counterpart. In districts where the challenge was lighter, such as HDs 105 and 108, Sessions ran closer to even or behind. What this suggests to me is that there are persuadable voters out there who were reached by some campaigns but clearly not by Will Pryor. Targeting those areas - and the good news is that Goolsby (51.93%), Harper-Brown (55.08%), England (49.16%), Branch (55.99%), and Hartnett (55.58%) are all clearly appealing targets - has the potential to gain a lot of votes. Plus, John Carona, whose SD04 is one of maybe three genuinely purple State Senate seats, will also be on the ballot with a lot of overlap. There's a lot more to going after Pete Sessions than just his Congressional seat.

The bottom line is that Dallas Democrats will have the wind at their back in 2008 in a way they didn't have it last year - they'll be like the Harris County GOP in 1996, in a position to pick up everything that wasn't available to them in the prior cycle. They should have no trouble fundraising, no trouble finding strong candidates up and down the ballot, and no trouble generating excitement to get out the vote. CD32 is within their grasp if they want to take it. We'll see what they do about it.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on April 25, 2007 to Election 2008