Introduction
Congressional districts
State Rep districts
Commissioners Court/JP precincts
Comparing 2012 and 2016
Statewide judicial
Other jurisdictions
Appellate courts, Part 1
Appellate courts, Part 2
Judicial averages
Other cities
We move on now to the county executive office races for Harris County in 2020, which will be the end of the line for Harris County precinct analyses. I do have a copy of the Fort Bend canvass, though they do theirs in an annoyingly weird way, and will try to put something together for them after I’m done with this batch. With the four executive offices that were on the ballot for their regular election in 2020 – District Attorney, County Attorney, Sheriff, and Tax Assessor – we can not only view the data for this year, but do a nice comparison to 2016, since three of the four Democrats were running for re-election. We begin with the office of District Attorney:
Dist Huffman Ogg Huffman% Ogg%
==========================================
CD02 181,395 153,831 54.11% 45.89%
CD07 151,171 152,168 49.84% 50.16%
CD08 26,099 14,788 63.83% 36.17%
CD09 38,774 118,363 24.68% 75.32%
CD10 104,070 58,639 63.96% 36.04%
CD18 61,750 177,517 25.81% 74.19%
CD22 21,915 20,050 52.22% 47.78%
CD29 51,805 98,693 34.42% 65.58%
CD36 83,428 47,862 63.54% 36.46%
SBOE4 112,135 329,155 25.41% 74.59%
SBOE6 386,230 351,903 52.33% 47.67%
SBOE8 222,042 160,854 57.99% 42.01%
SD04 56,181 22,546 71.36% 28.64%
SD06 60,192 114,828 34.39% 65.61%
SD07 238,787 169,996 58.41% 41.59%
SD11 77,642 46,770 62.41% 37.59%
SD13 39,376 157,461 20.00% 80.00%
SD15 116,146 192,255 37.66% 62.34%
SD17 116,482 126,617 47.92% 52.08%
SD18 15,601 11,441 57.69% 42.31%
HD126 39,478 33,020 54.45% 45.55%
HD127 55,071 34,468 61.51% 38.49%
HD128 48,573 21,680 69.14% 30.86%
HD129 48,042 35,285 57.65% 42.35%
HD130 70,936 31,731 69.09% 30.91%
HD131 10,680 43,720 19.63% 80.37%
HD132 51,619 47,325 52.17% 47.83%
HD133 50,014 37,668 57.04% 42.96%
HD134 47,324 59,450 44.32% 55.68%
HD135 37,256 36,324 50.63% 49.37%
HD137 10,453 20,788 33.46% 66.54%
HD138 31,908 30,922 50.78% 49.22%
HD139 16,318 44,125 27.00% 73.00%
HD140 9,831 21,145 31.74% 68.26%
HD141 7,624 35,399 17.72% 82.28%
HD142 14,736 40,758 26.55% 73.45%
HD143 12,636 23,549 34.92% 65.08%
HD144 14,258 16,030 47.07% 52.93%
HD145 15,480 26,476 36.90% 63.10%
HD146 11,608 43,070 21.23% 78.77%
HD147 15,669 52,711 22.91% 77.09%
HD148 22,652 36,721 38.15% 61.85%
HD149 21,576 30,596 41.36% 58.64%
HD150 56,664 38,952 59.26% 40.74%
CC1 95,557 277,035 25.65% 74.35%
CC2 153,715 141,830 52.01% 47.99%
CC3 227,974 210,631 51.98% 48.02%
CC4 243,161 212,418 53.37% 46.63%
JP1 93,091 164,781 36.10% 63.90%
JP2 35,099 47,838 42.32% 57.68%
JP3 53,148 66,595 44.39% 55.61%
JP4 238,031 181,915 56.68% 43.32%
JP5 204,724 214,657 48.82% 51.18%
JP6 8,739 26,466 24.82% 75.18%
JP7 19,549 99,068 16.48% 83.52%
JP8 68,026 40,594 62.63% 37.37%
Here’s the same data from 2016. I’m going to reprint the table below and then do some comparisons, but at a macro level, Kim Ogg was the second-most successful candidate in Harris County in 2016. Her 696,955 votes and her 108,491-vote margin of victory were second only to Hillary Clinton. Ogg received 54.22% of the vote in 2016. She fell a little short of that percentage in 2020, garnering 53.89% of the vote this year, while increasing her margin to 121,507 votes. She was more middle of the pack this year, as the overall Democratic performance was up from 2016. She trailed all of the statewide candidates in total votes except for Gisela Triana, who was less than 300 votes behind her, though her percentage was higher than all of them except Joe Biden and the three Court of Criminal Appeals candidates. She had fewer votes than three of the four appellate court candidates (she was exactly nine votes behind Jane Robinson), but had a higher percentage than three of the four. Among the district and county court candidates, Ogg had more votes and a higher percentage than seven, more votes but a lower percentage than two, and fewer votes and a lower percentage than six.
(Writing all that out makes me think it was Republicans who were skipping judicial races more than Democrats. In the race immediately above DA, Democrat Julia Maldonado got 3,354 more votes than Ogg, but Republican Alyssa Lemkuil got 17,325 fewer votes than Mary Nan Huffman. In the race immediately after DA, Democrat Lesley Briones got 14,940 more votes than Ogg, but Republican Clyde Leuchtag got 30,357 fewer votes than Huffman. That sure looks like less Republican participation to me.)
Here’s the district breakdown for the DA race from 2016. It’s not as comprehensive as this year’s, but it’s good enough for these purposes.
Dist Anderson Ogg Anderson% Ogg%
==========================================
CD02 156,027 117,810 56.98% 43.02%
CD07 135,065 118,837 53.20% 46.80%
CD09 26,881 106,334 20.18% 79.82%
CD10 78,602 38,896 66.90% 33.10%
CD18 47,408 154,503 23.48% 76.52%
CD29 36,581 93,437 28.14% 71.86%
SBOE6 328,802 277,271 54.25% 45.75%
HD126 34,499 26,495 56.56% 43.44%
HD127 46,819 26,260 64.07% 35.93%
HD128 39,995 18,730 68.11% 31.89%
HD129 40,707 27,844 59.38% 40.62%
HD130 57,073 23,239 71.06% 28.94%
HD131 7,301 38,651 15.89% 84.11%
HD132 36,674 31,478 53.81% 46.19%
HD133 46,242 29,195 61.30% 38.70%
HD134 43,962 45,142 49.34% 50.66%
HD135 31,190 28,312 52.42% 47.58%
HD137 8,728 18,040 32.61% 67.39%
HD138 26,576 24,189 52.35% 47.65%
HD139 12,379 39,537 23.84% 76.16%
HD140 6,613 20,621 24.28% 75.72%
HD141 5,305 32,677 13.97% 86.03%
HD142 10,428 34,242 23.34% 76.66%
HD143 9,100 23,434 27.97% 72.03%
HD144 10,758 16,100 40.06% 59.94%
HD145 11,145 22,949 32.69% 67.31%
HD146 10,090 38,147 20.92% 79.08%
HD147 12,156 45,221 21.19% 78.81%
HD148 17,538 29,848 37.01% 62.99%
HD149 15,352 27,535 35.80% 64.20%
HD150 47,268 28,160 62.67% 37.33%
CC1 73,521 240,194 23.44% 76.56%
CC2 123,178 126,996 49.24% 50.76%
CC3 187,095 164,487 53.22% 46.78%
CC4 204,103 164,355 55.39% 44.61%
The shifts within districts are perhaps more subtle than you might think. A few stand out – CD07 goes from a 6.4 point win for Devon Anderson in 2016 to a narrow Ogg win in 2020, powered in large part by a ten-point shift in Ogg’s favor in HD134. On the flip side, Ogg carried CC2 by a point and a half in 2016 but lost it by four points in 2020, as her lead in CD29 went from 43 points to 31 points. Overall, Ogg saw modest gains in Republican turf – CD02, HD126, HD133, HD150, CC3, CC4 – and some Democratic turf – CD18, HD146, HD147, HD148, CC1 – and some modest losses in each – CD10, CD29, HD128, HD140, HD143, HD144, HD145, CC2.
In a lot of places, the percentages went one way or the other, but the gap in total votes didn’t change. CD09 is a good example of this – Ogg won it by 80K votes in each year, but with about 24K more votes cast in 2020, split evenly between her and Huffman, that lowered her percentage by four points. Same thing in HD127, which Ogg lost by 20,559 in 2016 and 20,603 in 2020, but added three percentage points because 16K more votes were cast. In the three Latino State Rep districts cited above, Ogg had more votes in 2020 in HD140, HD143, and HD145 than she did in 2016 – she had 70 fewer votes in HD144 – but her improvements in the first two districts were in the hundreds, while Huffman outperformed Anderson by 2,300 in HD140, by 3,500 in HD143, and by 3,500 in HD144; Huffman improved by 4,300 in HD145 while Ogg added 3,500 votes. As we’ve discussed before, it will be interesting to see how these districts perform going forward, and in lower-turnout scenarios.
So we see some changes in where the vote was, with Ogg building a bit on 2016, in the same way that Joe Biden built a bit on what Hillary Clinton did in 2016. As I write this, I haven’t actually taken this close a look at the district changes in the other county races, so we’ll learn and discover together. I think we can expect that some of this behavior is mirrored elsewhere, but this is the only race with an incumbent running for re-election who did basically as well as they had done before, so the patterns may be a little harder to discern. But that’s what makes this exercise so interesting each cycle. Let me know what you think.
It appeared to me that the HCRP placed almost all their local efforts into helping Huffman.