Precinct analysis: Obama v Obama

So as mentioned before I now have a draft canvass for Harris County. There’s a lot of data to go through, and I’ll probably publish most of what I find after the holiday. One thing I’d like to share for now is a comparison of how President Obama did in the various redrawn districts versus how he was predicted to do based on 2008 results in the precincts that make up these districts. In the table below, reading from left to right, “Romney” and “Obama” give the two-party percentage of each candidate’s vote from 2012, while “McCain” and “Obama” do the same for 2008. Third party votes and undervotes are ignored, this is just a straight up comparison of the ratio of GOP votes to Obama votes.

Dist     Romney   Obama   McCain   Obama
========================================
CD02     63.93%  36.07%   62.32%  37.68%
CD07     60.87%  39.13%   59.22%  40.78%
CD18     23.06%  76.94%   23.02%  76.98%
CD29     33.40%  66.60%   37.32%  62.68%

SBOE6    60.67%  39.33%   58.88%  41.12%

SD06     32.86%  67.14%   36.08%  63.92%
SD07     67.64%  32.36%   65.32%  34.68%
SD15     40.26%  59.74%   39.68%  60.32%

HD126    62.85%  37.15%   62.32%  37.68%
HD127    70.07%  29.93%   68.32%  31.68%
HD128    73.15%  26.85%   70.42%  29.58%
HD129    65.59%  34.41%   62.88%  37.12%
HD130    76.92%  23.08%   74.50%  26.50%
HD131    15.80%  84.20%   18.00%  82.00%
HD132    59.71%  40.29%   60.12%  39.88%
HD133    68.58%  31.42%   65.37%  34.63%
HD134    57.51%  42.49%   53.02%  46.98%
HD135    59.63%  40.37%   61.01%  38.99%
HD137    34.75%  65.25%   37.14%  62.86%
HD138    60.13%  39.87%   59.82%  40.18%
HD139    23.79%  76.21%   24.10%  75.90%
HD140    29.26%  70.74%   33.36%  66.64%
HD141    12.13%  87.87%   14.40%  85.60%
HD142    22.12%  77.88%   21.41%  78.59%
HD143    32.18%  67.82%   35.45%  64.55%
HD144    48.53%  51.47%   51.56%  48.44%
HD145    38.87%  61.13%   42.36%  57.64%
HD146    20.26%  79.74%   21.43%  78.57%
HD147    20.62%  79.38%   19.07%  80.93%
HD148    42.08%  57.92%   41.88%  58.12%
HD149    42.28%  57.72%   44.12%  55.88%
HD150    69.39%  30.61%   68.09%  31.91%

In case you’re wondering, the 2008 data comes from the FTP directory of the Texas Legislative Council – click on the plan in question (note: C = Congress; E = Education, as in State Board Of; H = House; S = Senate), then Reports, then your preferred format, then finally on the link that has “RED206_2008G_Statewide” in it. The districts I analyzed are ones that are entirely contained within Harris County. There’s no point in comparing, say, the results in SD17 or HD36 to the TLC reports, since these districts run into other counties and thus would render such a comparison moot.

The first thing that should strike you is that the map-drawers knew what they were doing. There’s not a lot of variation between what was predicted based on 2008 results and what actually happened in 2012. Romney generally did a little better than McCain in Republican districts. The exceptions are HDs 132 and 135 where he underperformed by a little, and HD134 where he had his biggest gain over McCain. Obama generally did a little better in the Democratic districts, with his biggest gains in the Latino districts. I have not gotten far enough in the analysis to determine how Obama did compared to other countywide Democrats in these districts – as we know, he lagged behind other Dems in Latino districts in 2008, but what we see here is consistent with what we saw in heavily Latino counties around the state. I’ll come back to this issue later after I’ve filled in more of the blanks.

While I haven’t yet completed filling in the relevant numbers for other candidates on the countywide ballot, I can compare Obama to the relevant Democratic candidate for each of these districts. Here’s how that looks, omitting candidates such as Rep. Gene Green who were not challenged by a Republican:

Dist   Candidate    Votes     Pct
=================================
CD02   Daugherty   80,262  33.49%
CD02       Obama   88,451  36.07%

CD07      Cargas   85,253  37.44%
CD07       Obama   92,128  39.13%

CD18         Lee  145,893  77.11%
CD18       Obama  149,775  76.94%

SBOE6     Jensen  207,697  40.58%
SBOE6      Obama  215,053  39.33%

SD06    Gallegos   93,136  70.94%
SD06       Obama   89,584  67.14%

SD07       Texas   90,606  31.59%
SD07       Obama   93,774  32.36%

SD15    Whitmire  135,595  62.34%
SD15       Obama  131,838  59.74%

HD127      Pogue   19,389  29.77%
HD127      Obama   19,660  29.93%

HD134    Johnson   36,366  45.66%
HD134      Obama   34,561  42.49%

HD137         Wu   15,789  65.72%
HD137      Obama   15,899  65.25%

HD144      Perez   12,425  53.47%
HD144      Obama   12,281  51.47%

HD149         Vo   25,967  61.12%
HD149      Obama   24,770  57.72%

HD150       Neal   19,308  30.30%
HD150      Obama   19,668  30.61%

It shouldn’t be a surprise to see longtime officials such as Sens. John Whitmire and the late Mario Gallegos overperform. Voters tend to be happier with their own representatives than with whatever legislative body those representatives belong to. I figure good constituent service accounts for a lot of that. In fairness, I note that Republicans Dan Patrick, Ted Poe, and John Culberson also appear to have beaten the spread, something Culberson decidedly did not do in 2006 and 2008.

I noted Traci Jensen’s challenge before the election, and unfortunately she was not able to eat into that 100,000 vote deficit that she faced. I think a 2008 level of turnout on the Democratic side would have added a couple thousand more votes to her total and pushed her into the “overperformer” group. Her two-party percentage was a bit higher than Obama’s despite her lower raw vote number due to larger influence of third party candidates in her race and probably more undervoting on the Republican side. The SBOE, like the Senate, has everyone run in the first post-redistricting election, then they draw lots to see who goes again in two years and who gets to wait for four. I hope the latter is the case for SBOE6, and I hope that 20+ years of unopposed Republicans someone continues Jensen’s work in the next election.

Ann Johnson in HD134 also faced an uphill climb, which turned out to be steeper than we thought. She did do what she needed to do – she collected some 2000 crossover votes in outperforming Obama by three points – it just wasn’t enough. Unlike many legislative districts, HD134 does not get noticeably bluer in presidential years – if anything, based on what we saw from 2006 and 2008, it gets a little redder – so it’s likely the case that 2014 at least won’t be any harder than this year was. It’s all about working to change people’s minds, which may be easier after another legislative session. We’ll see about that. Johnson ran a strong race, the wall was just too high for her. Mary Ann Perez also did very well running in a district that turned out to be a little more friendly than we originally expected. The boost Obama got from Latino voters likely helped, but she went above and beyond that. If the district isn’t redrawn by the San Antonio court, Perez will surely face a strong challenge in 2014, but she’s already proven she can swim against the tide. As for Gene Wu in HD137, there’s nothing I can say that Greg hasn’t already said, so go read him.

I do have data about the County Commissioner precincts, but this post is long enough. I’ll get to that and to other matters in subsequent entries. Let me know what you think about this.

Related Posts:

• A comparison to 2012
• 2020 precinct analysis: Introduction and overview
• Precinct analysis: Brazoria County