Post-Primary Day thoughts

Various thoughts and observations that are better aggregated into one post…

– I believe this is the first time that all of the statewide candidates I voted for either won or advanced to the runoff in the primary. Statewide primaries are tricky, and one should never overestimate one’s name ID. Thankfully, there were no zeroes in the downballot races, and the ones that were in the top level races lost.

– As primary season began, I had expressed hope for a high level of primary turnout, to provide further evidence of our level of engagement in this election. We topped one million votes cast, and the total number of votes in the Governor’s primary (1,017,150) bested the total number from 2002 (1,003,388). There are more voters now, of course, and Republicans topped 1.5 million total, but still. It’s nearly double what we had in 2014 and it’s the second best total basically ever, after 2008. I’m happy with that.

– Of course, the fact that Republicans did cast more primary votes than Democrats is being cited as evidence that there’s no “blue wave” coming. I thought the fact that Democrats vastly outvoted Republicans in the 2008 primary was supposed to be evidence that primary turnout doesn’t really tell you anything? I’m confused. Be that as it may, Democrats had a bit less than double the turnout from 2014, while Republicans were up about fifteen percent. You can feel however you want to about that, I feel good about it.

– Looking at election night returns, a bit more than half of the Democratic primary vote was cast early, and the same was true for the Republican primary vote. It was basically the same in Harris County, where about 55% of the vote in each party was cast early. Final Harris County turnout for Dems was 167,396, and for Republicans it was 155,798.

– Which means, if primary turnout is indeed destiny, that Republicans are doomed in Harris County, right? You tell me when this matters and when it doesn’t.

– Democratic runoffs include Governor, eleven Congressional races, SBOE12, SD17, seven State Rep races, and all of the countywides plus one more HCDE and one JP races in Harris County. There are surely other county race runoffs elsewhere, but I’m not going to go looking for them at this time. Republicans have six Congressional runoffs, seven State Rep runoffs, two district Courts of Appeals, and in Harris County one District Court race and one JP race. That suggests to me there will be more media attention being paid to the Democratic runoffs, especially given the lack of a Republican statewide race for May. Of course, that may not all be good attention, but it’s another difference from 2014, and 2012 for that matter.

– I’m still digesting all the numbers, and will have more thoughts and tidbits as we go. I expect to get a canvass report from the County Clerk in the next couple of days and will of course play with that. For the most part, I’m happy with how the primaries went. People were engaged, turnout was good, no obvious clunkers got elected or into runoffs. You always want more, but overall I have no complaints. May I say the same about the runoffs in May. How do you feel about how the primaries went?

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8 Responses to Post-Primary Day thoughts

  1. Manny Barrera says:

    November will be about the traitorous Clown that occupies the White House and how many traitorous Americans, if one wants to refer to them thus, are willing to destroy this country. I hope that that are more loyal Americans than traitors. I am sure that there are exceptions.

  2. penwyth says:

    I’m wondering how the CD 7 primary run-off is going to turn out.

    In the Tuesday vote, Fletcher was near 30% with Moser at +23%, but I get the sense that Moser may edge ahead of Fletcher in the primary if the Sander’s Our Revolution supporters turn out for Moser.

  3. blank says:

    Which means, if primary turnout is indeed destiny, that Republicans are doomed in Harris County, right? You tell me when this matters and when it doesn’t.

    Not a clue when it matters. But, despite the top lines being roughly 105K Rep vs 71K Dem in Tarrant County, Democrats got more votes in SD 10, CC 2, and JP 7. All three of these seats were contested in the Democratic Primary and uncontested in the Republican Primary, but I know if I were Deborah Peoples, those 3 seats would be my top 3 targets.

  4. Piotr says:

    I am so disappointed by Dem turnout… Can someone explain me why Dems ran ahead of 2016 numbers in EV and in the end, got only 1 040 000 (1 500 000 in 2016)?

    It seems the Dem turnout collapsed on election day…

  5. Mainstream says:

    More important than the total number of primary voters is how many of those voters were new and not previously identified by the parties as among their supporters. That data is the real value of high primary turnout.

  6. Paul Kubosh says:

    Mainstream…well said.

  7. Karen says:

    Because 2016 was a presidential election year.

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