Category Archives: Election 2008

If you’ve looked at a red/blue map of Harris County for this election, you’ve noticed that the Democrats by and large dominate the center, stretching south and southwest towards Fort Bend, whereas it’s all red around the remaining edges. The … Continue reading → Continue reading →

In addition to HD105, there was a recount in the HD11 race in East Texas, where incumbent Democrat Rep. Chuck Hopson survived by 103 votes. That recount was concluded yesterday, but it seems to have raised more questions than it … Continue reading → Continue reading →

As the official recount in HD105 gets underway, the Texas Democratic Party has filed a new lawsuit in federal court to require that so-called “emphasis votes” be counted. The Texas Democratic Party filed a federal voting-rights lawsuit against Dallas County … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The following comparison comes out of a conversation I had yesterday with Greg and the realization that it hasn’t gotten anywhere near the attention I think it deserves. I’m talking about the result out in House Speaker Tom Craddick’s district, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Early voting for the SD17 special election runoff begins one week from today, and runs from the 8th to the 12th of December, with Runoff Day itself being two weeks from tomorrow, the 16th. Perry and Hal have early voting … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I know I’ve said that there’s little variation across the county in candidate performances (the races in which Republicans won excepted, of course), but there is at least one glaring example I can come up with: Rep. Gene Green in … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Lisa Falkenberg has a mostly humorous column about what local Republicans are thankful for these days. One bit just stands out like a sore thumb: Nearly everybody said they were thankful for 2010. And 2012. And any election year that … Continue reading → Continue reading →

This sounds about right. House Speaker Tom Craddick’s critics say they’ve got enough signed pledges against him to make his re-election all but impossible. But Craddick’s opponents have yet to coalesce around a challenger seeking to replace him, ensuring that … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The Star Telegram talks about what the election of Wendy Davis to the State Senate means. With Davis, they now have 12 members — one more than the 11 votes needed to block legislation in the 31-member Senate — and … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Have I mentioned lately how glad I am that Sheriff-elect Adrian Garcia administered such a thorough butt-kicking to Tommy Thomas? Apparently, Thomas has not been particularly gracious or professional in defeat. Garcia soundly beat Tommy Thomas by 12 points on … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The recount in HD105 can now begin, according to a Dallas district court judge, who ruled he did not have the jurisdiction to act on the Democratic lawsuit over “emphasis votes”. State District Judge Jim Jordan on Tuesday said legal … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’m going to take a holiday break from the precinct data, but don’t worry, I’ve got more stuff in the works. And yes, Peter Wang, I promise to do an analysis of the Steve Radack-Dexter Handy race. In the meantime, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The recount in HD105 has not gotten started yet, but there’s plenty of courtroom action in the meantime. The crux of the Dallas County case involves straight-party voting on electronic voting machines. When someone votes a straight-party ticket but then … Continue reading → Continue reading →

If studying all the precinct data for Harris County seems too daunting, you can get a pretty good representation of the county in a smaller scale by studying HD133, where Rep.-elect Kristi Thibaut unseated freshman Rep. Jim Murphy in a … Continue reading → Continue reading →

In addition to Loren Jackson, our new District Clerk, two more Democratic candidates who won elections to fill unexpired terms will be sworn into office this week. One is Judge Kathy Stone, who was elected to replace the late Judge … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The final cumulative and canvass reports are out. I’ve been working off of a draft canvass, which did not include provisional ballots, so if you compare those numbers to mine you’ll find a few differences here and there. Shouldn’t be … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The race for Congressional District 7 was one of the top campaigns in Harris County this cycle. It attracted a lot of local and national interest, various polls showed it to be competitive, and there was a boatload of money … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’m just going to dive into this one, because the numbers pretty much speak for themselves. The following is a comparison between 2004 and 2008 in Harris County in various Republican districts. I’m comparing John Kerry’s performance to Barack Obama’s, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Loren Jackson, our newly-elected District Clerk, will be sworn in this afternoon to fill out the unexpired portion of former Clerk Charles Bacarisse’s term. He gets to start right away instead of waiting till January because it’s an unexpired term. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

And the winner is…December 16. Gov. Rick Perry today announced a special runoff election to fill the vacancy in Senate District 17 to be held on Dec. 16, 2008. A special election to fill the seat left vacant by the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Ready for some precinct data analysis? Let’s get started. There will be a lot of these entries, because there’s a lot of interesting data. Today let’s take a look at how Barack Obama’s performance in Harris County compared to the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

There’s still one more election to go before we can put 2008 to bed, and that’s the runoff for the special election in SD17. Democratic candidates got a majority of the vote on November 4, and Chris Bell came out … Continue reading → Continue reading →

After I published my post about where and when the vote was in Harris County, I got an email from HCDP Chair Gerry Birnberg regarding the voter registration numbers. He writes: One thing to watch out for as you proceed … Continue reading → Continue reading →

While I maintain that only fools make predictions, not all predictions themselves are foolish. I think I did pretty well on mine, all things considered. But not everyone fared so well. For instance, in the comments to this post, the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

All of the ballots in Harris County have now been counted, and the results of all the races remain the same. Before Thursday, for instance, Democratic challenger Josefina Muniz Rendon was ahead of Republican state District Judge Elizabeth Ray by … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I have a draft canvass of precinct data for Harris County, and have been happily slicing and dicing it to see what secrets I can tease out. There’s all kind of fascinating stuff in there – right now my biggest … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I have finally received precinct data from Harris County. It’s going to take me a little while to work through it to start getting some answers about how the votes were distributed – Matt Stiles, who got his draft canvass … Continue reading → Continue reading →