Tag Archives: Election 2008

November 2020 Early Voting Day Eight: Any idea what pattern we’ll follow?

The Chron provides five takeaways from early voting so far. Democrats appear to be doing well in Harris County, but don’t call it a wave yet. Turnout to date has been strong in precincts carried by Trump and Clinton in … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Seven: It’s Day One all over again, sort of

Here’s a mid-day headline that needed some revision by the evening. Harris County is on pace to reach half of of 2016’s total voter turnout by Monday evening, the county clerk reported. By 11 a.m. Monday, the seventh day of … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Six: And now we start the “normal” early voting period

I’m just going to jump right into the data here. The Day Six daily EV totals are here. You can find the daily totals for 2008 and 2012 (and 2016 as well, but I’ve got a separate link for it) … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Five: How not to look at the early voting totals

From Twitter on Friday: . Biden needs a rout in Harris County (#Houston) to have any chance of winning TX. We’ve had 3 days of record-shattering turnout and by tonight may have 500k votes. But so far, Biden probably isn’t … Continue reading

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All those voter registration efforts did what they set out to do

News item #1: Texas adds nearly 300,000 more voters in the last two weeks, approaches 17 million voters overall. In just two weeks, Texas added more than 284,000 more voters to its rolls just before the registration deadline and now … Continue reading

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The overlooked Congressional race

There are ten Congressional races involving Republican-held seats that are seen as competitive. Nine of them have gotten a fair amount of attention. The tenth is CD06, and the Texas Signal steps in to fill the gap. The race in … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Four: One hundred thousand is the magic number

Lather, rinse, repeat. The county announced it had passed the 100K mark in a tweet just after 6 p.m. It was the four straight day with more than 100,000 ballots cast by county voters. Those four days now mark the … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Three: It’s still raining voters out there

People want to vote. About 1.9 million Texans had cast ballots in-person or by mail as of Wednesday, according to state and county election data, continuing to crush state records for early voting. The 2020 presidential election is expected to … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Two: One million votes on Day One

Pretty impressive so far. More than a million Texans have already cast ballots after just the first day of early voting. And the state isn’t even finished counting the first day’s numbers. Record breaking early voting, combined with unusually high … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day One: People sure were ready to vote

You’re going to hear the words “record-breaking” a lot. More than 125,000 Harris County residents went to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots on the first day of early voting, smashing the county’s previous records. As of about 7:30 p.m., … Continue reading

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The HCDE makeover

One more world to conquer in Harris County. The future looked bleak for Texas’ last remaining county education department in early 2019. After years of state-level efforts to abolish the Harris County Department of Education, a new majority of trustees … Continue reading

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Don’t expect any surprises in the judicial races

There’s a simple reason why the Democratic candidates and incumbents are expected to win all the judicial races in Harris County, as they did in 2016 and 2018. I’ll tell you why in a minute, but see if you can … Continue reading

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Another look at the County Commissioner race

It’s the most consequential local race on the ballot this year. Every four years since 1968, Harris County residents have been able to count on a Republican winning the Precinct 3 commissioner’s seat. In that half century, a parade of … Continue reading

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Why endorse Sarah Davis?

It’s a good question. Planned Parenthood’s Texas political arm on Thursday endorsed state Rep. Sarah Davis, rebuffing abortion rights activists who had lobbied the group to deny political support for the Houston Republican. The efforts to deny Davis the endorsement … Continue reading

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Republicans try and fail to remove Libertarian candidates from the ballot

From Patrick Svitek: . Texas appeals court rejects last-minute lawsuits by @NRCC, @TravisGOP to kick Libertarian candidates off November ballot for not paying filing fees: http://search.txcourts.gov/SearchMedia.aspx?MediaVersionID=fee8c1fc-f70a-4d57-baf0-5775ccdea786&coa=coa03&DT=Opinion&MediaID=9242cd19-73c0-441c-bc1f-786be9ec000f — Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) 12:00 AM – 26 August 2020 The Third Court of … Continue reading

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As goes Tarrant, 2020 edition

Hello, old friend. Shortly after Democrat Beto O’Rourke launched his campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018, he made several visits to Tarrant County in North Texas to press the message that if he could flip this county, … Continue reading

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The progressives and the runoffs

May as well check in on this. Judging from March, the ideological left wing of the Democratic Party in Texas should be inconsolable. After months of high hopes, the faction ran into a centrist buzz saw in the March 3 … Continue reading

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2020 Primary Runoff Early Voting, Second Tuesday: A history of Democratic primary runoffs

Yesterday I said that the turnout so far in the 2020 Democratic primary runoff was already historic. Today I’m going to show my work on that. Herewith is the 21st century history of Democratic primary runoff turnout for Harris County: … Continue reading

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Interview with Rep. Chris Turner

I’ve done two interviews about redistricting so far, with both of them focused on the litigation aspect of it, which in turn had a focus on Congress. Today I want to pay more attention to the Legislature, which is not … Continue reading

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The fifty percent challenge

An interesting point from Amy Walters. President Trump is at the most precarious political moment of his presidency. Or at least, the most precarious since the summer and fall of 2017 when, in the wake of Charlottesville, the failure to … Continue reading

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Does getting to 40% make you likely to win the runoff?

I was talking with some fellow political nerds last week, and one of the topics was the forthcoming runoffs. As is usually the case, this year we have some runoffs between candidates who finished fairly close together in round one, … Continue reading

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Let’s talk turnout

Just a few random bits and pieces about turnout from the primaries. On the one hand, I think it’s great that Dems got the turnout that we did, in Harris County and around the state. On the other hand, I … Continue reading

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Trautman apologizes for the long lines

A very good start. Harris County Clerk Diane Trautman is taking “full responsibility” for the long lines and wait times that bogged down election night voting and forced some voters to wait more than six hours to cast their ballots. … Continue reading

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Primary early voting: Comparing 2020 to 2016

The Chron looks into the early voting numbers around the state. Experts cautioned that early voting data should be taken with a grain of salt — for one because the subset of people who vote early aren’t necessarily representative of … Continue reading

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Final 2020 primary early voting report: “Healthy but not historic”

Sounds about right. Democratic primary voters surged to the polls in Harris County on Friday, surpassing turnout from 2016 but falling well short of their record-setting performance in 2008. Republican primary voters, meanwhile, turned out in larger-than-expected numbers thanks to … Continue reading

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2020 Primary Early Voting, Day Ten: Come hell or high water

Yesterday was quite the day, wasn’t it? People did still vote, which is nice. Here’s the Day Ten report for 2020, and here are the totals from 2012, 2016, and 2018. The totals after Day Ten: Year Mail Early Total … Continue reading

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2020 Primary Early Voting, Day Six: On to Week Two

We’re back from the weekend, where the only votes tallied are in-person. We have five more days of early voting to go. Here’s the Day Six report for 2020, and here are the totals from 2012, 2016, and 2018. The … Continue reading

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Five questions for the primary

Five questions I thought of, anyway. With my own answers, some of which are admittedly on the weaselish side. Feel free to discuss/disagree/ask your own questions/etc. 1. What kind of turnout are we going to have? The short answer is … Continue reading

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2020 Primary Early Voting begins today

We don’t have a long primary season in Texas – the filing deadline was barely two months ago, though to be sure some candidates have been running for much longer than that – and the first part of it is … Continue reading

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Speaking of voter registration

The Chron notes the latest milestone. For the first time in history, Texas has topped 16 million registered voters and is adding voters faster than its population grows heading into the 2020 presidential election. With the voter registration deadline for … Continue reading

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We should have a full statewide slate

Nice. For Brandon Birmingham, a state district judge in Dallas, the 2020 race for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals started on election night 2018. As he watched Beto O’Rourke win more votes than any Texas Democrat ever had in a … Continue reading

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Filing period preview: Harris County

Previously: Congress, Statewide, and SBOE/Senate/House. For County races, I cannot use the Patrick Svitek spreadsheet, as it doesn’t include local races. I am instead using the Campaign Contribution and Expenditure Reports for Various County Offices link on the County Clerk … Continue reading

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District Court Judge Smoots-Thomas accused of wire fraud

Yikes. A Harris County judge is facing federal charges that accuse her of using campaign donations for personal expenses, including for mortgage payments, private school tuition and travel. Judge Alexandra Smoots-Thomas, 44, is charged with wire fraud charges, according to … Continue reading

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Univision News poll: Trump 42, Dem 47

Here’s a fun poll. Days away from the third Democratic debate in Houston and over a year from the 2020 presidential election, an exclusive poll by Univision News found that 40% of registered voters in the state say they will … Continue reading

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