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
District Attorney
The office of County Attorney gets less attention than District Attorney, but as we have seen it’s vitally important. Vince Ryan held the office for three terms before being ousted in the primary by Christian Menefee. Menefee’s overall performance was similar to Ryan’s in 2016 – I’ll get to that in a minute – but as we saw in the previous post that doesn’t mean there can’t be a fair bit of variance. Let’s see where that takes us. Here’s the 2020 breakdown:
Dist Nation Menefee Nation% Menefee%
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CD02 178,265 154,520 53.57% 46.43%
CD07 149,139 151,213 49.65% 50.35%
CD08 25,809 14,986 63.27% 36.73%
CD09 37,016 119,594 23.64% 76.36%
CD10 102,438 59,410 63.29% 36.71%
CD18 58,121 179,867 24.42% 75.58%
CD22 21,591 20,074 51.82% 48.18%
CD29 48,935 100,744 32.69% 67.31%
CD36 82,457 48,040 63.19% 36.81%
SBOE4 104,688 334,552 23.83% 76.17%
SBOE6 380,793 351,322 52.01% 47.99%
SBOE8 218,290 162,575 57.31% 42.69%
SD04 55,522 22,733 70.95% 29.05%
SD06 56,939 117,097 32.72% 67.28%
SD07 235,108 171,376 57.84% 42.16%
SD11 76,866 46,710 62.20% 37.80%
SD13 36,807 159,259 18.77% 81.23%
SD15 112,115 194,216 36.60% 63.40%
SD17 115,210 125,384 47.89% 52.11%
SD18 15,204 11,676 56.56% 43.44%
HD126 38,751 33,320 53.77% 46.23%
HD127 53,950 35,101 60.58% 39.42%
HD128 48,046 21,796 68.79% 31.21%
HD129 47,571 35,152 57.51% 42.49%
HD130 69,976 32,109 68.55% 31.45%
HD131 9,822 44,446 18.10% 81.90%
HD132 50,540 47,980 51.30% 48.70%
HD133 49,624 36,901 57.35% 42.65%
HD134 46,775 58,410 44.47% 55.53%
HD135 36,489 36,696 49.86% 50.14%
HD137 10,191 20,871 32.81% 67.19%
HD138 31,535 30,924 50.49% 49.51%
HD139 15,325 44,753 25.51% 74.49%
HD140 9,241 21,586 29.98% 70.02%
HD141 6,943 35,992 16.17% 83.83%
HD142 13,733 41,540 24.85% 75.15%
HD143 11,934 24,039 33.17% 66.83%
HD144 13,762 16,387 45.65% 54.35%
HD145 14,777 26,896 35.46% 64.54%
HD146 11,016 43,379 20.25% 79.75%
HD147 14,738 53,266 21.67% 78.33%
HD148 21,758 36,937 37.07% 62.93%
HD149 21,400 30,636 41.13% 58.87%
HD150 55,873 39,332 58.69% 41.31%
CC1 90,530 280,069 24.43% 75.57%
CC2 149,810 143,859 51.01% 48.99%
CC3 224,601 210,646 51.60% 48.40%
CC4 238,830 213,877 52.76% 47.24%
JP1 90,035 165,193 35.28% 64.72%
JP2 33,965 48,473 41.20% 58.80%
JP3 51,412 67,741 43.15% 56.85%
JP4 233,642 184,203 55.92% 44.08%
JP5 201,673 214,852 48.42% 51.58%
JP6 7,971 26,993 22.80% 77.20%
JP7 17,824 100,329 15.09% 84.91%
JP8 67,249 40,667 62.32% 37.68%
Menefee scored 54.66% of the vote, better than Ogg by almost a point, and better than Ryan’s 53.72% in 2016 by slightly more. Ryan was consistently an upper echelon performer in his three elections, and that was true in 2016 as well, as only Ogg, Hillary Clinton, and judicial candidate Kelly Johnson had more votes than his 685,075, with those three and Mike Engelhart being the only ones with a larger margin of victory than Ryan’s 95K. Menefee, who collected 848,451 total votes and won by a margin of 145K, was also top tier. His vote total trailed all of the statewide candidates except Chrysta Castaneda and Gisela Triana (one better than Kim Ogg), though his percentage was better than everyone except Joe Biden and Tina Clinton. He outpaced three of the four appellate court candidates (he trailed Veronica Rivas-Molloy) and all but four of the local judicial candidates. His margin of victory was eighth best, behind Biden, Castaneda, two statewide judicials, and three local judicials. (And Ed Gonzalez, but we’ll get to him next.)
Here’s my 2016 precinct analysis post for the County Attorney race, and here’s the relevant data from that year:
Dist Leitner Ryan Leitner% Ryan%
==========================================
CD02 158,149 113,363 58.25% 41.75%
CD07 135,129 116,091 53.79% 46.21%
CD09 25,714 106,728 19.42% 80.58%
CD10 80,244 36,703 68.62% 31.38%
CD18 46,062 154,354 22.98% 77.02%
CD29 35,312 93,732 27.36% 72.64%
SBOE6 331,484 269,022 55.20% 44.80%
HD126 34,999 25,571 57.78% 42.22%
HD127 47,719 24,876 65.73% 34.27%
HD128 40,809 17,464 70.03% 29.97%
HD129 41,206 26,677 60.70% 39.30%
HD130 58,268 21,630 72.93% 27.07%
HD131 6,719 39,011 14.69% 85.31%
HD132 37,294 30,571 54.95% 45.05%
HD133 46,509 28,002 62.42% 37.58%
HD134 42,937 44,634 49.03% 50.97%
HD135 31,651 27,468 53.54% 46.46%
HD137 8,661 17,869 32.65% 67.35%
HD138 26,893 23,486 53.38% 46.62%
HD139 11,874 39,721 23.01% 76.99%
HD140 6,316 20,762 23.33% 76.67%
HD141 4,969 32,887 13.13% 86.87%
HD142 10,179 34,249 22.91% 77.09%
HD143 8,745 23,486 27.13% 72.87%
HD144 10,725 16,024 40.09% 59.91%
HD145 10,858 22,921 32.14% 67.86%
HD146 9,532 38,323 19.92% 80.08%
HD147 11,719 45,087 20.63% 79.37%
HD148 17,529 29,206 37.51% 62.49%
HD149 15,405 27,290 36.08% 63.92%
HD150 48,085 26,950 64.08% 35.92%
CC1 70,740 240,579 22.72% 77.28%
CC2 123,739 124,368 49.87% 50.13%
CC3 188,415 160,213 54.04% 45.96%
CC4 206,707 158,990 56.52% 43.48%
Kim Ogg did slightly better in the districts in 2016 than Vince Ryan did (most notably in CD02, though Ryan outdid her in HD134), which is what you’d expect given her overall better performance. In a similar fashion, Menefee did slightly better in the districts than Ogg did, as expected given his superior totals. He won CD07 by a thousand more votes than Ogg did, and carried HD135 where Ogg did not. He lost CC2 by two points and 6K votes, while Ogg lost it by four points and 12K votes. His lead in CD29 was 6K smaller than Ryan’s was, while Ogg lost 10K off of her lead in CD29 from 2016.
Overall, Menefee improved on Ryan’s 2016 totals, and made larger gains than Ogg did over her 2016 numbers. Like Ogg, he lost ground in the Latino districts – CD29, HD140, HD143, HD144, CC2 – but not by as much. He had higher vote totals in the Latino State Rep districts, though by small amounts in HDs 140, 143, and 144, and increased the lead over what Ryan had achieved in HDs 145 and 148. Like Ogg, he also lost ground in HD149, going from a 12K lead to a 9K lead, and in HD128, going from a 23K deficit to a 27K deficit (Ogg went from down 21K to down 27K). He gained ground in HD127 (from down 23K to down 19K; Ogg stayed roughly the same) and lost only about a thousand net votes in HD130 as Ogg went from down 34K to down 39K. He posted strong gains in HD126 (down 9K to down 5K), HD133 (down 18K to down 13K), and HD150 (down 21K to down 16K).
On the whole, a very strong initial performance by Menefee. As I said, County Attorney is generally a lower-profile job than District Attorney and Sheriff, but between bail reform, the multiple election lawsuits, and the forthcoming Republican legislative assault on local control, there should be many chances for Menefee to make statements about what he does and can do. He’ll have a solid chance to build on what he did this year when he’s next up for election.