Population and voting trends: 2002 and 2006 judicial elections, Part I

For the next entry in this series, we’re going to look at how county returns changed from 2002 to 2006 in statewide judicial races in Texas. Again, I’m using judicial races here because they tend to reflect straight partisan preference a bit more closely. It might have been nice to compare Senate races or Governor’s races, but those contests were too different in each year to really tell us much. As with the previous entry, I’m comparing one Supreme Court race – Steven Wayne Smith versus Margaret Mirabal in 2002, and Don Willett versus Bill Moody in 2006 – and one Court of Criminal Appeals race – Paul Womack versus Pat Montgomery in 2002, and Sharon Keller versus JR Molina in 2006. Here are my observations:

– Right off the bat, the main difference between this comparison and 2004-2008 comparisons is with turnout. Where 2008 saw 650,000 more voters than 2004, 2006 saw a decline from 2002. In the Governor’s race, for example, there were 4,553,987 votes cast in 2002, but only 4,399,116 in 2006. I attribute this to there being fewer high profile races – in 2006, about all that people were really paying attention to was the Governor’s race, and that was more for the wackiness factor, while 2002 had high-profile, big-dollar races for the Senate and Lite Guv as well. In addition, the lack of a Democratic “ticket” meant there was basically no statewide GOTV effort. You’ll clearly see the effect of this in some counties.

– In the races we’re actually considering, Willett/Moody drew 295,700 fewer votes than Smith/Mirabal, while Keller/Molina attracted 149,880 fewer than Womack/Montgomery. It should be noted that there was a Libertarian candidate in the Willett/Moody race; that was the only such contest with a third candidate. As always, only the R and D vote totals are considered.

– As such, in the end everyone lost votes from 2002 to 2006. The Republicans lost more votes, however, so the Democrats had a net gain in each race. Smith got 2,331,140 votes, Willett got 2,135,612, for a drop of 195,528. Mirabal received 1,978,081 votes to Moody’s 1,877,909, a decline of 100,182 but a net reduction of the Dems’ deficit of 95,356, from -353,059 to -257,703. On the CCA side, it was Womack 2,463,069 and Keller 2,346,204, a dip of 116,865, and Montgomery 1,828,431, Molina 1,795,416, a drop of 33,015 but a net pickup on the deficit of 83,850 as it reduced from -634,638 to -550,788.

– In the Supreme Court race, Democrats lost ground in 90 counties, gained in 163, and stayed even in one, Freestone, where the deficit was exactly 432 votes each time. In nine of the ten counties where the Dems took the biggest step backwards, both parties lost votes from 2002 but the Democrats lost more. A look at these ten counties will give you the reason why:

County Smith Willett Loss Mirabal Moody Loss Dem Net =================================================================== Webb 5,723 3,588 -2,135 30,712 13,295 -17,417 -15,282 Hidalgo 18,523 15,739 -2,784 44,133 28,576 -15,557 -12,773 Harris 308,107 275,807 -32,300 309,802 271,021 -38,871 -6,481 Jefferson 20,775 18,747 -2,028 31,564 24,553 -7,011 -4,983 Cameron 14,953 13,633 -1,320 26,804 22,977 -3,827 -2,507 Bexar 121,614 117,031 -4,583 141,088 134,383 -6,705 -2,122 Maverick 1,048 800 -248 4,742 2,736 -2,006 -1,758 Smith 30,053 28,469 -1,584 15,124 11,931 -3,193 -1,609 Angelina 9,485 11,161 1,676 8,704 8,866 162 -1,514 Nueces 29,099 27,979 -1,120 35,969 33,417 -2,552 -1,432

Say what you want about Tony Sanchez and his Titanic campaign, but he helped bring a huge number of Democratic voters out to the polls. Just look at the huge dropoffs in 2006 in Webb (Sanchez’s home base), Hidalgo, and Maverick. If we were to continue down this list, we’d see similar declines. Willacy, Jim Wells, Brooks, Zapata, Frio, Zavala, Jim Hogg, and Dimmitt – all of them saw their Democratic turnout drop by as much as 50% or more. To a lesser degree, it was the same effect in Cameron, Nueces, and Bexar. When you hear people talk about the Democrats’ strategy or lack of same for the Valley and South Texas, this is their Exhibit A. We know about Jefferson and Angelina, which were moving away from the Democrats from 2004 to 2008; this is just a part of that trend, with Jefferson also being at the bottom of a population dip in 2006. Smith is also a county that is moving away from the Democrats, though that effect was masked in 2008 due in part to its higher than average African-American population. As for Harris, I’d attribute the downer to there being basically no Democratic ground game in 2006. I can say with confidence that will not be the case this year.

You may also note that Mirabal won a majority in Harris County, making her the only Democrat to do so that year. If we swap out Willett/Moody for the one race in which a Democrat won a majority in Harris in 2006, that of Elsie Alcala versus Jim Sharp, we get the following:

County Smith Alcala Loss Mirabal Sharp Loss Dem Net =================================================================== Harris 308,107 276,529 -31,578 309,802 277,820 -31,982 -404

Hold that thought, because we’ll eventually come back to it. The story is more than a little different when we look at the CCA races:

County Womack Keller Change Mntgmry Molina Change Dem net =================================================================== Webb 6,121 3,575 -2,546 30,116 14,135 -15,981 -13,435 Hidalgo 19,306 16,124 -3,182 43,563 29,133 -14,430 -11,248 El Paso 34,007 32,492 -1,515 62,196 54,028 -8,168 -6,653 Jefferson 22,190 19,747 -2,443 29,993 24,046 -5,947 -3,504 Nueces 31,311 32,235 924 33,076 31,479 -1,597 -2,521 Cameron 15,562 14,924 -638 26,442 23,444 -2,998 -2,360 Angelina 10,070 12,216 2,146 8,072 8,280 208 -1,938 Maverick 1,074 862 -212 4,754 2,805 -1,949 -1,737 Medina 5,590 6,073 483 3,597 2,978 -619 -1,102 Wilson 4,999 6,312 1,313 3,483 3,744 261 -1,052

Webb, Hidalgo, Maverick, Cameron, and Nueces are all still there, with their issues of depressed Democratic turnout from 2002. Note, however, that JR Molina failed to win Nueces while Moody, who ran an actual campaign, carried it. Angelina and Jefferson, with their increasingly red (and in Jefferson’s case, shrinking overall) populations are there as well. El Paso had the same turnout issues as the first five counties, with about 10,000 fewer voters showing up in 2006, but it’s also Bill Moody’s home turf, and he killed there, getting over 70% of the vote and more than 6,000 more tallies than Molina, giving him a net gain over Mirabal.

The other two new counties here are small ones. Moody lost ground in Medina and Wilson counties, he just lost less than Molina did, with -1850 in Medina and -750 in Wilson. What’s more interesting is the counties they replaced: Harris and Bexar. Margaret Mirabal ran very strongly in Harris in 2002, just a wee bit better than Bill Moody, but enough to represent a big drop in net margin. Montgomery and Molina were more representative of average performance in each year, so Molina wound up with a net gain. Same story with Bexar, though Moody won it as Mirabal had, just by a smaller margin. Again, we’ll revisit all this later.

Here’s where Moody and Molina saw their biggest gains:

County Smith Willett Change Mirabal Moody Change Dem net =================================================================== Travis 87,540 73,382 -14,158 122,214 130,546 8,332 22,490 Dallas 204,686 168,162 -36,524 219,999 204,310 -15,689 20,835 Tarrant 186,595 166,293 -20,302 136,564 133,600 -2,964 17,338 Collin 88,762 82,834 -5,928 33,893 42,514 8,621 14,549 Denton 69,899 63,475 -6,424 30,361 35,905 5,544 11,968 Williamson 46,480 43,193 -3,287 25,501 31,466 5,965 9,252 Montgomery 53,977 54,018 41 17,451 20,632 3,181 3,140 Hays 14,238 13,644 -594 11,891 14,131 2,240 2,834 Fort Bend 47,008 49,953 2,945 37,145 42,890 5,745 2,800 McLennan 27,860 26,554 -1,306 22,211 23,005 794 2,100 County Womack Keller Change Mntgmry Molina Change Dem net ================================================================= Travis 95,152 83,346 -11,806 112,709 131,035 18,326 30,132 Harris 337,368 295,795 -41,573 277,639 262,496 -15,143 26,430 Dallas 215,763 186,960 -28,803 205,495 195,356 -10,139 18,664 Tarrant 196,164 180,813 -15,351 126,457 128,575 2,118 17,469 Collin 91,795 88,847 -2,948 30,228 41,003 10,775 13,723 Denton 72,230 68,435 -3,795 27,549 34,432 6,883 10,678 Williamson 48,838 48,599 -239 22,728 30,545 7,817 8,056 Fort Bend 49,783 52,085 2,302 33,904 42,670 8,766 6,464 Lubbock 38,458 35,657 -2,801 14,976 15,913 937 3,738 Hays 14,887 15,330 443 10,955 14,046 3,091 2,648

Most of this you’re already familiar with, so I won’t belabor it. Note that Harris went from one of Moody’s biggest net losses to one of Molina’s biggest net gains; that says more about Margaret Mirabal than anything else. Note also that the Dallas Democratic sweep of 2006 was happening even as Democratic turnout from 2002 was down. That says more about the demographics of that area than anything else, and it’s one reason why I believe suggestions of a Republican comeback there, outside of perhaps the District Attorney’s race and its unique dynamics, are farfetched.

So that’s our first look at the 2002 and 2006 judicial elections. There’s one more way to look at them, and that’s what we’ll do in the last entry of this series.

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