Category Archives: Election 2008

I’ve publicly wondered about the bizarre result of the Railroad Commissioner primary election, as I still can’t think of a plausible reason Mark Thompson came away with a near-majority of the vote. To help me try to understand this a … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Today is the last day to vote for Rick Noriega in the Progressive Patriots PAC poll. As of last report, Noriega was leading the vote, so let’s bring this one home. It just takes a minute, and it’s worth $5000 … Continue reading → Continue reading →

After I published the report on primary voting by State Rep district for Harris County, I got a note from Diane Trautman asking me if I could do the same thing for turnout. At first I said no, as the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

This feels like a reach to me, but I suppose you never know. The Republican Party of Texas is calling for an investigation into a December fundraiser for Rep. Hubert Vo hosted by a supporter who may be more used … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Interesting. A lawyer for Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick reversed himself Tuesday, saying the Midland Republican specified that he wanted his $250,000 donation to a political committee to go to several House Democrats who supported him. When Travis County prosecutors … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Dr. Murray takes a look at the GOP primary results in Harris County, beginning with County Judge Ed Emmett’s successful defense against Charles Bacarisse. The first point to note is that while the 170,000 voter turnout in Harris County’s Republican … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Elise Hu had it first, and Postcards has the details about Rick Reed endorsing Mindy Montford in the runoff for Travis County DA. In a not-so-surprising move, former Travis County district attorney candidate Rick Reed, who finished fourth in the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Short notice, but if you haven’t had a chance to meet Michael Skelly, the man who’s giving local Republicans a case of the blues, there’s an event for him tonight at 3rd Bar @ Reef, 2600 Travis in Midtown – … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Here’s an easy opportunity to help Rick Noriega earn a little money. Sen. Russ Feingold’s Progressive Patriots PAC has five grand burning a hole in its pocket, and he’s looking for a Senate candidate to give it to. Need I … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The next thing I did with the canvass data was to sort it all by State Rep district and sum up how the statewide and countywide campaigns did in each of them. Note that there were Democratic State Rep candidates … Continue reading → Continue reading →

However much value there was for endorsements in the March 4 primary – and in this year’s environment, the answer is clearly “not much” – they will be a lot more valuable in the sure-to-be-tiny-turnout runoff. I’m guessing there will … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’m not terribly interested in the various charges that Pat Lykos and Kelly Siegler are lobbing at each other, though I do have to tip my hat to whoever’s doing Lykos’ oppo research. They’ve dug up some pretty interesting things, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’m taking a look through the precinct-by-precinct canvass data for the Democratic primary in Harris County to see what I can learn. The first thing I wanted to look at was voting in the downballot elections. Did the supporters of … Continue reading → Continue reading →

We have our first endorsement for the Travis County DA runoff: Gary Cobb, the third-place finisher in last week’s Democratic primary for Travis County district attorney, will announce his support of candidate Rosemary Lehmberg today in the April runoff election, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

What’s the point of having data if you don’t analyze it? While presidential hopeful Barack Obama handily won last week’s Democratic primary over Hillary Rodham Clinton in Harris County, a review of key precincts exposes a highly polarized electorate in … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Not a whole lot of runoff action this year. There just weren’t that many more-than-two-candidate primaries – having no Democratic-held open-seat State House races was a factor there – and of course the big field Senate race everyone was watching … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I don’t know that there’s anything much left to discuss of the theory that Republican crossover votes had any meaningful effect in the Democratic primary last week, but for completeness’ sake, I’ll link to Mike Baselice’s analysis (Word doc), which … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Stupidity is always a bipartisan trait. A veteran Capitol staffer resigned Monday over allegations he impersonated both a state representative and a newspaper reporter in the last month – first to sway a state primary race, then to glean information … Continue reading → Continue reading →

In the aftermath of her close primary win, there was some speculation that State Rep. Dora Olivo, who accepted some late PAC money from Tom Craddick, would owe him a vote to be Speaker – see Paul Burka, for example. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

This isn’t really news, in the sense that it’s happened over and over again in elections across the country, but in case you’ve forgotten, it’s still the case that being an anti-immigrant demagogue isn’t an electoral winner. The cooling down … Continue reading → Continue reading →

As we see in this blog post by the Chron’s Alan Bernstein, Rep. John Culberson is now officially worried about Michael Skelly and his fundraising prowess. But what really caught my eye was this rather amazing admission by Harris County … Continue reading → Continue reading →

It’s going to be so much fun going through all this data. Well, for me, anyway. For a lot of people, it’s gonna be a boatload of work. Perhaps one of the lasting effects of the record primary turnout for … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Last week, Christof sent me a note asking if I would consider revisiting my Richmond Rail Effect concept with the GOP primary for County Judge, since Metro in general and Richmond rail in particular were issues in the race thanks … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Rick Casey places a phone call to Harris County Tax Assessor Paul Bettencourt, and confirms what some of us have been saying all along: Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt, whose office maintains computerized records of who votes in which … Continue reading → Continue reading →

If there’s one thing I think I can say with complete certainty, it’s that the upcoming primary runoffs are not going to set any records for turnout. Not positive ones, anyway. In Harris County, there are five Republican and three … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I noted in an update to yesterday’s post about Republican participation in the Democratic primary that Dave Weigel was reporting that Rush Limbaugh has taken credit for Hillary Clinton’s win on Tuesday, as he apparently exhorted his listeners to hold … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I see that Royal Masset seems to have found a balm for his anxiety about the huge disparity in turnout between the Democrats and the Republicans. He’s noted the 700,000 vote dropoff from the Presidential primary to the Senate primary … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that there haven’t been any lawsuits filed yet over this election. Miya reports on one that may come: The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) told me today that it’s considering filing … Continue reading → Continue reading →

So as we know, turnout in the Harris County Democratic Party primary was more than double that of the Republican primary – 409,619 to 170,836. And we also know that there’s been a certain amount of trash talk by Republicans … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Report card time… 1. President, both parties My guess: Obama by ten points, McCain with about 60%. Turnout of over 2.5 million on the Dem side, less than 1.5 million on the GOP side. Well, I was wrong about Obama … Continue reading → Continue reading →

And the Republican results: John McCain is now the official Republican nominee, with Mike Huckabee dropping out but Ron Paul (who also won his CD14 primary easily) carrying on. McCain won a fairly soft 51% of the vote statewide. Turnout … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Some good, some not so good… Hillary Clinton overcame an early vote deficit to win Texas. Delegate results are here (PDF) – she leads the Senate district delegates 63-62. Caucus results will take some time. Obama won Harris County with … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The good so far: Jessica Farrar at 75% in early voting. Rick Noriega just barely under 50% in early voting. Armando Walle wining the early vote and within 100 votes overall. David Mincberg and Diane Trautman cruising, Adrian Garcia at … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I am at my precinct convention (Precinct 003). Maybe 100 people here, with a slight majority for Obama by my reckoning. Very few Republicans. Will call things to order shortly and will post updates as time permits. UPDATE: Successfully transitioned … Continue reading → Continue reading →