One last look at partisan voting trends this decade, with a peek at how straight ticket voting has changed over time. This one is a bit trickier to determine, since it’s not tracked by the Secretary of State. You have to go to each individual County Clerk website to figure it out. Some counties I looked at – Cameron, Comal, Galveston, and Hays – either didn’t have election result archives, or they had incomplete information. Here’s what I found for the counties that did have this data:
County 2002 R 2002 D 2004 R 2004 D 2006 R 2006 D 2008 R 2008 D ========================================================================= Bexar 34,477 30,314 137,314 128,109 51,776 58,560 118,870 155,989 Collin 50,404 13,706 113,078 36,916 46,621 18,708 112,959 56,975 Dallas 134,937 138,656 215,618 228,549 108,000 124,136 187,980 289,551 Denton 43,312 13,207 88,377 31,798 36,385 14,992 87,281 44,238 El Paso 12,256 39,070 29,043 59,735 10,754 27,008 23,612 76,737 Fort Bend 28,069 19,058 51,745 41,065 23,556 25,260 66,851 68,517 Guadeloupe 2,866 1,251 16,126 5,922 6,268 3,117 16,207 8,738 Harris 185,606 171,594 370,455 325,097 137,663 145,865 343,919 391,488 Hidalgo 14,436 22,627 8,008 17,071 20,201 61,896 Montgomery 31,342 5,910 66,429 14,666 30,263 7,988 82,368 21,187 Nueces 11,285 16,793 21,650 26,355 10,085 13,807 21,246 25,883 Rockwall 3,765 1,083 10,803 2,389 5,728 1,342 9,463 2,941 Tarrant 110,334 78,370 222,512 134,792 92,948 67,404 214,289 175,402 Travis 37,264 49,342 76,648 105,940 31,326 52,462 66,449 125,058 Williamson 42,064 18,499 21,426 10,255 46,423 30,356
Hidalgo and Williamson only had results from 2004 onward. Bet you didn’t know that more people voted straight ticket Democratic in Fort Bend than they did Republican the last two cycles. As with the previous entries in this series, the trends, especially from 2002 to 2006 and 2004 to 2008, should be clear. But just to illuminate a little further, here are the differences:
County R 0602 D 0602 R 0804 D 0804 D net 0602 D net 0804 ============================================================== Bexar 17,299 28,246 -18,444 27,880 10,947 46,324 Collin -3,783 5,002 -119 20,059 8,785 20,178 Dallas -26,937 -14,520 -27,638 61,002 12,417 88,640 Denton -6,927 1,785 -1,096 12,440 8,712 13,536 El Paso -1,502 -12,062 -5,431 17,002 -10,560 22,433 Fort Bend -4,513 6,202 15,106 27,452 10,715 12,346 Guadeloupe 3,402 1,866 81 2,816 -1,536 2,735 Harris -47,943 -25,729 -26,536 66,391 22,214 92,927 Hidalgo 5,765 39,269 33,504 Montgomery -1,079 2,078 15,939 6,521 3,157 -9,418 Nueces -1,200 -2,986 -404 -472 -1,786 -68 Rockwall 1,963 259 -1,340 552 -1,704 1,892 Tarrant -17,386 -10,966 -8,223 40,610 6,420 48,833 Travis -5,938 3,120 -10,199 19,118 9,058 29,317 Williamson 4,359 11,857 7,498
“0602” means the difference between 2006 and 2002; it’s simply the 2006 total minus the 2002 total. Same for “0804”, substituting 2008 and 2004 for 2006 and 2002. Finally, here are the numbers expressed as percentages:
County 2002 R 2004 R 2006 R 2008 R ========================================= Bexar 53.21% 51.73% 46.93% 43.25% Collin 78.62% 75.39% 71.36% 66.47% Dallas 49.32% 48.54% 46.52% 39.36% Denton 76.63% 73.54% 70.82% 66.36% El Paso 23.88% 32.71% 28.48% 23.53% Fort Bend 59.56% 55.75% 48.25% 49.38% Guadeloupe 69.61% 73.14% 66.79% 64.97% Harris 51.96% 53.26% 48.55% 46.77% Hidalgo 38.95% 31.93% 24.61% Montgomery 84.14% 81.92% 79.12% 79.54% Nueces 40.19% 45.10% 42.21% 45.08% Rockwall 77.66% 81.89% 81.02% 76.29% Tarrant 58.47% 62.28% 57.96% 54.99% Travis 43.03% 41.98% 37.39% 34.70% Williamson 69.45% 67.63% 60.46%
The numbers represent what percentage of all straight ticket votes cast were Republican. Again, you can see the trends for yourself. The partisan numbers were almost exactly reversed in Harris County from 2004 to 2008.
The question in all this is whether or not it matters for this year’s election. The answer is yes, but it’s far from the only factor, and it’s impossible to say what the total effect will be. I’m presenting this data because I think it’s useful and interesting. What you make of it is up to you.
Interesting. If we project this out to 2014, Collin County could be at 54-56% GOP in straight ticket voting. If that ends up being the case, the GOP could be in trouble even in the outer suburban counties. Minorities are beginning to move into these areas and are bringing their D leaning voting habits with them.
I have an untested theory that the reduction in straight party GOP voting is a direct result of the increasing acrimony within the Republican Party and the use of the term “RINOs”, for Republicans in Name Only. The more this term gets bandied about, the more average voters are no longer willing to vote for every Republican downballot, for fear of supporting someone whose views do not meet their litmus tests. And since many of these downballot candidates are fairly unknown, at some point the voter tires of going through the list of 60 judicial candidates and just quits.