We have four – count ’em, four – runoffs for Harris County office nominations for May. Every contested countywide non-judicial primary – that is, everything other than County Judge – is going to overtime. I’m going to look at the data from these four races with an eye towards the runoffs. As a reminder, my analysis of the Senate primary is here, and my analysis of the Governor and Lt. Governor races is here. Let’s start with the District Clerk race.
Dist Howard Burgess Jordan Shorter
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CD02 3,161 15,405 2,276 4,938
CD07 3,254 16,917 2,307 5,271
CD08 234 819 160 435
CD09 3,918 7,493 3,185 5,959
CD10 1,000 3,442 769 1,578
CD18 5,631 13,574 4,807 8,922
CD22 438 1,458 355 708
CD29 2,850 6,260 2,562 3,739
CD36 993 4,150 726 1,508
HD126 712 2,089 577 1,010
HD127 772 2,505 635 1,220
HD128 486 1,559 344 659
HD129 712 3,509 534 1,207
HD130 610 2,156 421 904
HD131 1,669 2,943 1,389 2,477
HD132 758 2,529 689 1,393
HD133 741 4,486 490 1,213
HD134 1,262 10,294 681 1,813
HD135 713 2,586 700 1,376
HD137 443 1,442 350 677
HD138 623 2,580 433 1,016
HD139 1,535 3,372 1,373 2,232
HD140 479 890 424 602
HD141 1,047 1,714 1,048 1,531
HD142 1,299 2,090 1,216 2,091
HD143 803 1,508 810 1,020
HD144 373 943 340 445
HD145 655 2,149 525 929
HD146 1,735 3,857 1,242 2,687
HD147 1,817 5,482 1,241 3,154
HD148 885 4,795 611 1,249
HD149 622 1,625 532 910
HD150 728 2,415 542 1,243
Marilyn Burgess was above the magic 50% line for most of the evening as Primary Day returns came in, but fell just short in the end, leading the pack with 49.22%. She was strong everywhere, getting at least a plurality in every district except HD142, which she missed by one vote. Stranger things have happened, but it’s hard to imagine her losing in the runoff given the data.
Next up is County Clerk:
Dist West Mitchell Trautman
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CD02 3,368 8,412 13,817
CD07 3,824 8,739 15,009
CD08 255 729 651
CD09 3,418 10,215 6,620
CD10 1,222 2,798 2,708
CD18 5,071 15,336 12,068
CD22 418 1,283 1,222
CD29 2,777 6,286 6,160
CD36 1,051 2,687 3,599
HD126 783 1,881 1,683
HD12 784 2,152 2,205
HD128 488 1,296 1,257
HD129 756 2,110 3,047
HD130 674 1,713 1,678
HD131 1,340 4,511 2,506
HD132 1,037 2,304 1,972
HD133 878 1,939 4,080
HD134 1,336 2,830 9,754
HD135 956 2,342 2,028
HD137 490 1,105 1,285
HD138 720 1,693 2,214
HD139 1,405 4,216 2,756
HD140 476 1,003 884
HD141 847 3,141 1,312
HD142 954 3,951 1,741
HD143 737 1,953 1,438
HD144 406 716 934
HD145 677 1,247 2,253
HD146 1,513 4,351 3,507
HD147 1,785 4,299 5,328
HD148 922 1,935 4,655
HD149 647 1,613 1,410
HD150 793 2,184 1,927
I’ll be honest, I thought Diane Trautman would do better than she did. She’s been around for awhile, she’s run and won countywide before, and she was a very active campaigner. I wasn’t the only one who was surprised to see this race be as close as it was, with Trautman at 44.27% and Gayle Mitchell, who lost a primary for County Clerk to Ann Harris Bennett in 2014, at 40.42%. When I say that Trautman was an active campaigner, I don’t just mean on Facebook and via email. I mean I saw her at multiple events, including all of the CEC meetings from 2017. Nat West was present at CEC meetings, as he is the SDEC Chair for SD13, but as far as I know Gayle Mitchell never attended and of those or any other event that I did. Be that as it may, she finished just 5,500 votes behind Trautman, and she won or ran strongly in numerous districts. She also did better on Primary Day than she did in early voting; the same was true for Rozzy Shorter and the other non-Burgess District Clerk candidates, which probably just suggests when different types of voters were voting.
Trautman has the advantage of the runoff in CD07 going into May, as that was a big driver of overall turnout and it was her strongest turf, though she wasn’t as strong there as Burgess was. Mitchell will likely benefit from the runoffs in JP7 and HCDE Position 6, Precinct 1 – there is significant overlap between the two – though neither of those will draw people out the way CD07 will. I guess that makes Trautman a slight favorite going into May, but we all thought she was a strong favorite going into March, so who knows. If I had one piece of advice for Trautman, it would be to see if she can get some elected officials to do some outreach on her behalf. Those of us who think she’s the strongest candidate to face Stan Stanart, especially if we’re not in CD07, need to make sure we bring some friends to the polls for her.
I’m going to present the last two races together. They are Treasurer and HCDE Trustee Position 3 At Large.
Treasurer
Dist Garcia Copeland Osborne
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CD02 8,841 4,988 11,335
CD07 9,412 5,635 11,931
CD08 685 408 533
CD09 6,404 6,742 6,729
CD10 2,826 1,763 2,060
CD18 9,634 9,856 12,141
CD22 1,226 702 989
CD29 8,533 3,170 3,816
CD36 2,835 1,493 2,910
HD126 1,762 1,154 1,391
HD127 2,001 1,280 1,752
HD128 1,268 733 1,005
HD129 2,185 1,166 2,512
HD130 1,679 1,024 1,324
HD131 2,478 2,999 2,711
HD132 2,289 1,508 1,472
HD133 2,209 1,222 3,260
HD134 3,581 1,897 8,060
HD135 2,251 1,485 1,537
HD137 1,193 691 996
HD138 1,849 1,047 1,689
HD139 2,390 2,746 3,051
HD140 1,333 521 573
HD141 1,569 1,964 1,589
HD142 2,038 2,353 2,061
HD143 2,146 978 1,039
HD144 1,301 332 479
HD145 2,399 576 1,295
HD146 2,645 2,898 3,568
HD147 3,264 2,888 4,983
HD148 3,066 1,034 3,373
HD149 1,469 1,029 1,150
HD150 2,031 1,232 1,574
HCDE
Dist Wallenstein Cantu Patton
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CD02 8,942 8,497 7,619
CD07 11,269 8,813 6,864
CD08 511 610 497
CD09 5,001 7,639 7,290
CD10 2,086 2,570 1,985
CD18 8,126 12,111 11,627
CD22 909 1,258 755
CD29 2,894 9,410 3,240
CD36 2,667 2,856 1,725
HD126 1,291 1,760 1,245
HD127 1,487 1,958 1,572
HD128 909 1,370 747
HD129 2,336 2,101 1,408
HD130 1,340 1,515 1,159
HD131 1,956 3,182 3,094
HD132 1,457 2,166 1,629
HD133 3,179 2,017 1,499
HD134 6,878 3,163 3,495
HD135 1,424 2,240 1,593
HD137 872 1,164 834
HD138 1,617 1,752 1,175
HD139 1,961 3,391 2,853
HD140 442 1,530 458
HD141 1,160 2,042 1,971
HD142 1,225 2,811 2,447
HD143 779 2,422 979
HD144 473 1,350 278
HD145 943 2,465 841
HD146 2,590 3,244 3,333
HD147 3,178 3,583 4,486
HD148 2,388 3,150 1,952
HD149 1,018 1,477 1,120
HD150 1,502 1,911 1,434
Treasurer is just a tossup. Dylan Osborne led Cosme Garcia by two thousand votes, and for the most part they were pretty close to even across the districts, with Garcia having a clear advantage in CD29. I don’t see enough of an advantage for either candidate to take a guess at who might have the edge in May. Neither outcome would surprise me.
Richard Cantu has a much more distinct advantage in HCDE, leading Josh Wallenstein by over 11,000 votes. Wallenstein came close to not making it to the runoff – he actually ran third in both phases of in-person voting, but had a big enough lead over Elvonte Patton in mail ballots to hang onto second place. Runoffs can be weird, but Cantu seems like the clear favorite for May.
That wraps it up for the Democratic primary precinct analyses. I have one more of these to present, from the other side. Hope you’ve found these to be useful.
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