Introduction
Congressional districts
We move now to State Rep districts, which is my usual currency since they provide complete coverage of the county with no partial pieces. You can also get a much more nuanced view of how things have shifted over time. There are more numbers here since there are more districts, so buckle up.
Dist Trump Biden Lib Grn Trump% Biden% Lib% Grn%
=================================================================
HD126 38,651 36,031 740 264 51.07% 47.61% 0.98% 0.35%
HD127 53,644 38,409 1,024 215 57.50% 41.17% 1.10% 0.23%
HD128 49,349 23,343 742 198 67.02% 31.70% 1.01% 0.27%
HD129 47,389 38,941 1,125 246 54.03% 44.40% 1.28% 0.28%
HD130 69,369 35,958 1,298 220 64.92% 33.65% 1.21% 0.21%
HD131 10,508 45,904 331 192 18.46% 80.63% 0.58% 0.34%
HD132 50,223 51,737 1,190 360 48.52% 49.98% 1.15% 0.35%
HD133 47,038 43,262 965 201 51.43% 47.30% 1.06% 0.22%
HD134 42,523 67,811 1,356 238 37.99% 60.58% 1.21% 0.21%
HD135 36,114 39,657 862 246 46.98% 51.58% 1.12% 0.32%
HD137 10,382 22,509 308 144 31.14% 67.51% 0.92% 0.43%
HD138 31,171 34,079 703 226 47.10% 51.50% 1.06% 0.34%
HD139 15,691 46,918 511 241 24.76% 74.05% 0.81% 0.38%
HD140 10,259 22,819 227 150 30.67% 68.21% 0.68% 0.45%
HD141 7,443 37,222 289 178 16.49% 82.47% 0.64% 0.39%
HD142 14,187 43,334 469 189 24.39% 74.48% 0.81% 0.32%
HD143 13,229 25,318 282 141 33.95% 64.97% 0.72% 0.36%
HD144 14,598 17,365 308 150 45.03% 53.56% 0.95% 0.46%
HD145 15,393 28,572 462 185 34.50% 64.05% 1.04% 0.41%
HD146 10,938 45,784 439 204 19.07% 79.81% 0.77% 0.36%
HD147 14,437 56,279 734 278 20.13% 78.46% 1.02% 0.39%
HD148 20,413 41,117 901 203 32.59% 65.65% 1.44% 0.32%
HD149 22,419 32,886 428 172 40.10% 58.82% 0.77% 0.31%
HD150 55,261 42,933 1,125 287 55.48% 43.10% 1.13% 0.29%
Dist Cornyn Hegar Lib Grn Cornyn% Hegar% Lib% Grn%
=================================================================
HD126 39,298 33,618 1,343 535 52.54% 44.95% 1.80% 0.72%
HD127 54,433 35,689 1,690 543 58.94% 38.64% 1.83% 0.59%
HD128 48,646 22,029 1,323 447 67.15% 30.41% 1.83% 0.62%
HD129 48,318 35,924 1,715 603 55.82% 41.50% 1.98% 0.70%
HD130 70,329 32,961 1,933 551 66.49% 31.16% 1.83% 0.52%
HD131 10,557 43,670 938 621 18.92% 78.28% 1.68% 1.11%
HD132 50,865 48,460 2,011 774 49.81% 47.46% 1.97% 0.76%
HD133 51,111 38,148 1,232 471 56.19% 41.94% 1.35% 0.52%
HD134 48,629 61,015 1,408 489 43.60% 54.70% 1.26% 0.44%
HD135 36,728 37,050 1,427 628 48.43% 48.86% 1.88% 0.83%
HD137 10,617 20,914 629 343 32.66% 64.34% 1.94% 1.06%
HD138 31,993 31,508 1,183 486 49.09% 48.35% 1.82% 0.75%
HD139 15,984 44,273 1,168 647 25.75% 71.33% 1.88% 1.04%
HD140 9,771 21,167 630 423 30.54% 66.17% 1.97% 1.32%
HD141 7,409 35,278 820 511 16.83% 80.14% 1.86% 1.16%
HD142 14,269 41,061 1,055 562 25.06% 72.10% 1.85% 0.99%
HD143 12,535 23,679 737 511 33.46% 63.21% 1.97% 1.36%
HD144 14,107 16,246 629 374 44.99% 51.81% 2.01% 1.19%
HD145 15,236 26,758 899 490 35.12% 61.68% 2.07% 1.13%
HD146 11,598 43,259 938 563 20.58% 76.76% 1.66% 1.00%
HD147 15,359 53,237 1,359 707 21.74% 75.34% 1.92% 1.00%
HD148 22,087 37,707 1,303 489 35.86% 61.23% 2.12% 0.79%
HD149 22,329 30,630 888 471 41.11% 56.39% 1.63% 0.87%
HD150 56,019 39,872 1,959 650 56.87% 40.48% 1.99% 0.66%
Dist Wright Casta Lib Grn Wright% Casta% Lib% Grn%
=================================================================
HD126 38,409 32,979 1,562 942 51.98% 44.63% 2.11% 1.27%
HD127 53,034 35,348 1,948 1,026 58.05% 38.69% 2.13% 1.12%
HD128 47,576 22,153 1,382 605 66.34% 30.89% 1.93% 0.84%
HD129 46,707 35,326 2,084 1,095 54.81% 41.46% 2.45% 1.29%
HD130 69,295 31,825 2,387 981 66.32% 30.46% 2.28% 0.94%
HD131 9,786 43,714 930 899 17.69% 79.01% 1.68% 1.62%
HD132 49,947 47,483 2,288 1,389 49.40% 46.96% 2.26% 1.37%
HD133 50,069 36,455 1,636 998 56.16% 40.89% 1.83% 1.12%
HD134 47,504 57,938 2,155 1,239 43.65% 53.23% 1.98% 1.14%
HD135 35,845 36,487 1,706 988 47.78% 48.63% 2.27% 1.32%
HD137 10,168 20,606 695 589 31.72% 64.28% 2.17% 1.84%
HD138 31,201 30,796 1,377 859 48.57% 47.94% 2.14% 1.34%
HD139 15,235 44,188 1,166 895 24.78% 71.87% 1.90% 1.46%
HD140 8,840 21,955 515 509 27.78% 69.00% 1.62% 1.60%
HD141 6,885 35,470 766 654 15.73% 81.03% 1.75% 1.49%
HD142 13,584 41,134 1,041 788 24.02% 72.74% 1.84% 1.39%
HD143 11,494 24,467 657 563 30.91% 65.81% 1.77% 1.51%
HD144 13,250 16,851 603 417 42.58% 54.15% 1.94% 1.34%
HD145 14,246 27,135 903 703 33.14% 63.12% 2.10% 1.64%
HD146 10,964 42,686 1,034 947 19.71% 76.73% 1.86% 1.70%
HD147 14,711 52,289 1,554 1,199 21.09% 74.96% 2.23% 1.72%
HD148 21,527 36,656 1,580 869 35.50% 60.46% 2.61% 1.43%
HD149 21,458 30,419 976 727 40.05% 56.77% 1.82% 1.36%
HD150 55,111 38,995 2,186 1,127 56.57% 40.03% 2.24% 1.16%
There’s a lot here, and I’m going to try to limit the analysis in this post to just what’s here, since I will have a separate post that looks back at previous elections. I’m going to pick a few broad themes here and will continue when I get to that subsequent post.
It’s clear that the big districts for Republicans crossing over to vote for Biden were HDs 133 and 134. Biden basically hit Beto’s number in 134, and he made 133 nearly as competitive as 126. The same effect is visible but smaller in 126, 129, 138, and 150, but it’s more noticeable in the lower downballot Democratic total than the Republican number. Some of those votes migrate to third party candidates, some may be people just voting at the Presidential level – it’s hard to say for sure. In 2016, there were bigger third party totals at the Presidential level, but this year those numbers were more like prior norms.
However you look at this, the fact remains that Republicans don’t have a lot of areas of strength. Only HDs 128 and 130 performed consistently at a 60% level for them; as we will see with the judicial races, some candidates reached that number in HD127 as well. Spoiler alert for my future post: That’s a big change from 2012. We’ll get into that later, but what that means for now is what I was saying in the Congressional post, which is that there’s little spare capacity for Republicans to distribute. There’s some red they can slosh into HDs 132, 135, and 138 if they want, but it’s going to be hard to make more than a few Republican incumbents feel safe.
I’m still not comfortable calling HD134 a Democratic district – which is a bit meaningless anyway as we head into redistricting – but the numbers are what they are. There’s still some volatility, mostly in judicial races as you’ll see, but this district just isn’t what it used to be. After the 2016 election, when Greg Abbott went hard at Sarah Davis and the Trump effect was already obvious, I wondered what Republicans would do with that district, since they didn’t seem to care about Davis. Abbott subsequently rediscovered his pragmatic side, but Davis is now history, and this district is at least as blue as Harris County is overall, so they have a whole different problem to contemplate. If anyone reading this is of a mind to mourn Davis’ demise, I say put 100% of the blame on Donald Trump and the degeneracy he has brought forward in the GOP. Sarah Davis never took my advice to leave the Republican Party, but a lot of her former voters did. The future is always in motion, but at this point I would not expect them to come back.
On the flip side, Trump and the Republicans saw some gains in Democratic areas. The two that stand out to me are HDs 144 and 149 – Dems were well above 60% in the latter in 2016. Note how Chrysta Castaneda was the best performer in this group among Dems – her numbers in HD144 were comparable to Rep. Mary Ann Perez’s totals. As for 149, it was the inverse of HD133, more or less, without anyone making it look competitive. Here, Biden did about as well as Rep. Hubert Vo. I think this is more likely to be a Trump-catalyzed fluke than the start of a trend, but we’ll just have to see what the next elections tell us.
Finally, I should probably do a separate post on third party voting by State Rep district this cycle, but for now let me state the obvious that there was a whole lot less of it than in 2016, for a variety of reasons. I didn’t bother naming the Libertarian and Green candidates in the column headers above because honestly, even with the kerfuffle over both Republicans and Democrats trying to force them off the ballot for filing fee non-payment, there just wasn’t any attention on them this year. HD148 was the high-water mark for the Libertarian candidate in 2016 at the Presidential level, and HD134 topped the chart for Railroad Commissioner levels, with 4.53% in the former and an eye-popping 12.18% in the latter; the Chron endorsement of Mark Miller for RRC in 2016 surely helped him there. HD148 was the “winner” this year for each, though at much tamer 1.44% and 2.68%, respectively. For the Greens in 2016, it was HD137 for President (1.30%) and HD145 for RRC (6.49%), and this year it was HD144 (0.46%) for President and HD137 (1.84%) for RRC. You can say what you want about which third party affects which major party – I will note that Chrysta Castaneda outperformed Grady Yarbrough in HD134 by fifteen points, while Wayne Christian was four points better than Jim Wright in the same district. HD134 shifted strongly Dem in 2020, but the quality of the Dem also mattered.
Next up is a look at County Commissioner and JP/Constable precincts, and after that we’ll get that deeper look at 2020 versus 2016 and 2012. Let me know what you think.
The last census estimates I saw had Harris going to 25 HD seats. Assuming that is correct, the open question is: Will the Republicans try to draw a 10-15 map? My guess that the answer is yes, but I don’t know how easy that is to do, and I don’t know enough about the Harris GOP stakeholders to say whether they might try to do it. It would sure be a lot easier on them to draw a 9-16 map with 9 very solid Republican seats.
On a completely different note, Michael Evans became the first Black mayor of Mansfield.
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/mansfield-elects-first-black-mayor-in-runoff-race/2500454/
In the interest of full disclosure and self-congratulations, I volunteered, as a phone banker, on Pastor Evans’s first Mansfield ISD win.
Redistricting is going to be super interesting this year at the state lege level. It’s clear to me that in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Denton, Fort Bend, and Harris that there’s going to be a limit to the creativity that Republicans can undertake in order to shore up districts with hope of holding the house until the end of the decade.
Their smartest tactic would be to basically cede almost every district lost in 2018 and turn them into dem vote sinks the best they can while siphoning out the heavily republican precincts in those areas to shore up their vulnerable neighboring incumbents. Simply put there’s no way that districts like 26, 132, or 138 hold up more than a cycle or two if they look anywhere close to their current form. Even districts 28, 126, 133 look to be prime territory for mid decade Democratic flips should a truly blue wave year form around that time. It’s theoretically possible Biden Rs go back to being loyal Rs but given a very strong possibility(likelihood) that we see Trump again at the top of the ticket in 2024 I think it’s more likely they go further and further from the party.
State lege Rs will have a lot of tough decisions to make and if their calculus lies in voters going back to pre-2016 voting habits I think they’ll be sorely mistaken.