We return to our tour of the precinct data with a look at the statewide judicial races. These tend to be interesting mostly as proxies for base partisan support, but there are variations that reflect qualities about the candidates. That’s what I’m going to focus on here.
Dist Green Garza Guzman Robinson R SJ Avg D SJ Avg
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CD02 156,800 107,513 163,092 100,247 158,852 103,416
CD07 135,310 108,540 144,087 99,977 138,618 104,011
CD09 25,906 103,431 27,993 101,594 26,242 102,489
CD10 79,113 34,926 80,104 33,297 79,337 33,927
CD18 45,665 149,521 50,198 144,817 46,814 146,929
CD29 34,618 91,898 40,381 85,592 35,849 88,188
SBOE6 329,707 253,583 346,471 235,776 335,602 243,912
HD126 34,635 24,431 35,565 23,230 34,861 23,735
HD127 47,208 23,767 48,074 22,592 47,409 23,032
HD128 40,567 16,310 40,856 15,756 40,513 15,989
HD129 40,578 25,159 42,100 23,578 41,139 24,193
HD130 57,460 20,405 58,131 19,372 57,638 19,776
HD131 6,812 38,016 7,565 37,395 6,923 37,668
HD132 36,509 29,355 37,394 28,250 36,716 28,697
HD133 46,810 25,780 49,559 23,138 47,911 24,387
HD134 44,064 41,029 49,468 35,686 46,233 38,348
HD135 31,226 26,170 32,263 25,003 31,496 25,523
HD137 8,568 17,074 9,165 16,546 8,743 16,774
HD138 26,600 22,314 27,842 20,926 26,972 21,525
HD139 11,909 38,459 12,907 37,412 12,132 37,903
HD140 6,219 20,336 7,324 19,129 6,430 19,617
HD141 4,993 32,192 5,391 31,834 4,982 32,006
HD142 10,070 33,520 10,763 32,789 10,208 33,091
HD143 8,718 22,970 9,933 21,652 8,927 22,196
HD144 10,592 15,528 11,318 14,623 10,689 14,987
HD145 10,584 22,300 12,511 20,273 11,063 21,133
HD146 9,618 36,999 10,637 36,067 9,928 36,519
HD147 11,536 43,516 13,478 41,685 12,147 42,533
HD148 17,146 27,893 19,709 25,140 18,013 26,352
HD149 15,245 26,292 15,875 25,657 15,370 25,934
HD150 47,406 25,632 48,229 24,488 47,624 24,911
CC1 70,859 232,823 78,886 225,102 73,125 228,635
CC2 122,115 119,904 129,022 112,013 123,728 115,261
CC3 187,552 151,403 196,274 142,372 190,521 146,507
CC4 204,547 151,305 211,872 142,722 206,690 146,412
Dist Green Garza Guzman Robinson R Avg% D Avg%
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CD02 56.81% 38.95% 59.09% 36.32% 57.28% 37.29%
CD07 53.24% 42.71% 56.70% 39.34% 54.00% 40.52%
CD09 19.42% 77.53% 20.98% 76.15% 19.34% 75.55%
CD10 66.72% 29.46% 67.56% 28.08% 66.96% 28.64%
CD18 22.47% 73.57% 24.70% 71.25% 22.82% 71.64%
CD29 26.39% 70.04% 30.78% 65.24% 26.88% 66.12%
SBOE6 54.15% 41.64% 56.90% 38.72% 54.62% 39.70%
HD126 56.39% 39.78% 57.90% 37.82% 56.72% 38.62%
HD127 64.08% 32.26% 65.25% 30.67% 64.37% 31.27%
HD128 68.85% 27.68% 69.34% 26.74% 67.98% 26.83%
HD129 58.89% 36.52% 61.10% 34.22% 59.05% 34.73%
HD130 71.00% 25.21% 71.83% 23.94% 71.16% 24.42%
HD131 14.80% 82.57% 16.43% 81.22% 14.88% 80.97%
HD132 53.12% 42.71% 54.41% 41.10% 53.35% 41.70%
HD133 62.02% 34.15% 65.66% 30.65% 63.04% 32.09%
HD134 49.46% 46.05% 55.52% 40.05% 51.07% 42.36%
HD135 52.28% 43.81% 54.01% 41.86% 52.30% 42.39%
HD137 31.93% 63.63% 34.16% 61.66% 31.92% 61.24%
HD138 52.08% 43.69% 54.51% 40.97% 52.34% 41.77%
HD139 22.82% 73.69% 24.73% 71.69% 23.05% 72.01%
HD140 22.65% 74.05% 26.67% 69.66% 23.03% 70.25%
HD141 13.06% 84.21% 14.10% 83.27% 12.95% 83.21%
HD142 22.41% 74.60% 23.95% 72.97% 22.57% 73.18%
HD143 26.59% 70.05% 30.29% 66.03% 26.61% 66.17%
HD144 39.06% 57.26% 41.73% 53.92% 38.95% 54.61%
HD145 30.76% 64.81% 36.36% 58.92% 31.52% 60.21%
HD146 19.91% 76.58% 22.02% 74.65% 20.26% 74.54%
HD147 19.94% 75.21% 23.29% 72.05% 20.71% 72.50%
HD148 35.91% 58.42% 41.28% 52.65% 37.16% 54.37%
HD149 35.46% 61.15% 36.92% 59.67% 35.03% 59.11%
HD150 62.31% 33.69% 63.39% 32.19% 62.52% 32.70%
CC1 22.48% 73.86% 25.03% 71.41% 22.93% 71.70%
CC2 48.48% 47.61% 51.23% 44.47% 48.46% 45.14%
CC3 53.16% 42.92% 55.63% 40.36% 53.51% 41.15%
CC4 55.12% 40.78% 57.10% 38.46% 55.47% 39.29%
Justice Dori Garza
The figures above represent the races with Dori Garza and Eva Guzman, who were the top Democratic and Republican vote-getters among judicial candidates. Guzman was actually the high scorer overall, while Garza has the second-best Democratic total, trailing Hillary Clinton but topping Barack Obama in 2008. The other numbers are aggregates of all the Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals candidates, where “R SJ Avg” means “Republican statewide judicial average” and “D SJ Avg” is the same thing for Democrats. The percentages have been calculated to include the third parties, though I didn’t explicitly list them for the sake of saving space.
The differences in each district are small, but they add up. Dori Garza received 162K more votes statewide than Savannah Robinson, while Eva Guzman collected 124K more than Paul Green. As previously expressed for third party candidates, I believe being Latina was an advantage for both Garza and Guzman, as I suspect they got the votes of some people who didn’t have a strong partisan preference and were perhaps drawn to a familiar name in a race where they didn’t know anything about who was running. This advantage is not universal – I suspect if I looked around the state, the effect would be small and possibly even negative in places that have few Latino voters. You can certainly see a difference for Garza in HDs 140, 143, 144, 145, and 148 compared to other districts, where the gap between her and the average D is around four points. It also doesn’t hurt that Garza and Guzman were both strong candidates, who were widely endorsed and (at least in Garza’s case) ran actual campaigns. None of this mattered this year, but if this had been a year where the margin at the Presidential level had been two or three points instead of nine, this could have been the difference between a close win and a close loss. I don’t want to over-generalize here, as in any year there will be a high scorer and a low scorer, but it’s something to keep in mind when we start recruiting candidates for 2018 and 2020.
But also keep in mind the fact that despite getting nearly 300,000 more votes than President Obama in 2012, Garza only received 41.12% of the vote, which is less than what Obama got that year. This is because the Republican vote was up, too. Compare Garza’s race to the Supreme Court, Place 6 election in 2012. Garza outpolled Michelle Petty by 279K votes, but Paul Green outdid Nathan Hecht by 629K. Go back to 2008 and Supreme Court, Place 8, and it’s more of the same: Garza improved on Linda Yanez by 170K, while Green did 738K better than Phil Johnson. The preponderance of new voters in Harris County were Democrats. That was not the case statewide. That’s a problem, and we shouldn’t let Hillary Clinton’s performance against Donald Trump distract us from that.
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