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
County Attorney
Sheriff
Tax Assessor
County Clerk
HCDE
Fort Bend, part 1
Fort Bend, part 2
Fort Bend, part 3
Brazoria County
Harris County State Senate comparisons
State Senate districts 2020
State Senate district comparisons
State House districts 2020, part 1
Today’s post is going to be an analysis of the State House districts from the perspective of the US Senate and Railroad Commissioner races. We have already observed in other contexts how Joe Biden outran the rest of the Democratic ticket, and we will see that here as well. But it’s a little more nuanced than that, because of the Latino vote and the Trump shift, which we have characterized as being mostly about Trump. The Texas Signal boiled down one piece of research on that as follows:
In an interview with Texas Signal, the Executive Director of Cambio Texas, Abel Prado, walked us through some of the big takeaways from their post-election report. One of his first points from the report was that many of the voters who came out in the Rio Grande Valley were specifically Donald Trump voters, and not necessarily Republican voters.
Many of Trump’s traits, including his brashness, a self-styled Hollywood pedigree, his experience as a businessman, and his billionaire status, resonated with many voters in the Rio Grande Valley. “The increase in Republican vote share were Donald Trump votes, not conservative votes, and there’s a difference,” said Prado.
Hold that thought, we’ll get to it in a bit. I’m going to present the data here in the same order as I did in the previous post, with the results from the Senate race (MJ Hegar versus John Cornyn) and the RRC race (Chrysta Castaneda versus Jim Wright) grouped together. We will start with the Republican districts that Biden carried:
Dist Hegar Cornyn Hegar% Cornyn%
========================================
026 40,478 43,650 47.1% 50.8%
066 42,688 42,768 48.9% 49.0%
067 47,484 46,775 49.2% 48.5%
096 42,210 44,471 47.5% 50.0%
108 50,639 49,689 49.4% 48.5%
112 34,800 32,591 50.2% 47.0%
121 44,062 49,365 46.0% 51.2%
132 48,460 50,865 47.5% 49.8%
134 61,018 48,629 54.7% 43.6%
138 31,508 31,993 48.3% 49.1%
Dist Casta Wright Casta% Wright%
========================================
026 39,238 42,818 46.5% 50.8%
066 41,139 41,650 48.1% 48.7%
067 45,970 45,494 48.6% 48.1%
096 41,135 44,103 46.7% 50.1%
108 49,347 48,118 48.8% 47.6%
112 34,635 31,768 50.3% 46.2%
121 43,992 46,975 46.6% 49.8%
132 47,483 49,947 47.0% 49.4%
134 57,940 47,504 53.2% 43.6%
138 30,796 31,201 47.9% 48.6%
You don’t need to review the previous post to see that Hegar and Castaneda fell short of the standard Biden set. Still, they carried 70 House districts, three more than were won by the Dems, and came within a point of two more. What we see here is the same thing we saw when we looked at these races in Harris County, which is not only that Joe Biden got more votes than these two Democrats, but John Cornyn and Jim Wright outperformed Donald Trump. These are your crossover voters, and the big question going into 2022 is what potential exists to swing them again, and in which races. Dems still fell short statewide in 2020 even with all those voters, but the hill is less steep with them than without them.
UPDATE: Correction – Hegar and Castaneda carried 68 House districts, one more than the total won by Dems. They carried GOP-won HDs 67, 108, and 112 and lost Dem-won HDs 31 and 74, for a net increase of one. I managed to confuse myself with the math by basing the calculation on that table above. They were still within a point of two other districts as shown above.
Here are the near-miss and reach districts for Biden:
Dist Hegar Cornyn Hegar% Cornyn%
========================================
014 27,435 35,269 42.2% 54.3%
028 54,571 65,387 44.6% 53.4%
029 43,327 52,292 44.2% 53.4%
054 34,462 36,551 47.1% 49.9%
064 39,350 47,395 43.8% 52.8%
092 36,564 40,601 46.0% 51.1%
093 37,934 44,925 44.4% 52.6%
094 34,826 39,970 45.3% 52.0%
097 42,210 44,471 47.4% 50.0%
122 51,835 72,452 40.9% 57.1%
126 33,618 39,298 44.9% 52.5%
133 38,149 51,111 41.9% 56.2%
032 29,613 38,322 43.5% 53.4%
070 48,246 77,306 37.5% 60.1%
084 22,626 35,019 37.8% 58.5%
085 32,212 43,653 41.5% 56.3%
089 40,761 57,531 40.5% 57.1%
106 53,674 73,313 41.2% 56.3%
129 35,924 48,318 41.5% 55.8%
150 39,872 56,019 40.5% 56.9%
Dist Casta Wright Casta% Wright%
========================================
014 25,863 34,522 40.7% 54.3%
028 53,363 64,123 44.3% 53.2%
029 42,256 51,097 43.7% 52.9%
054 33,036 36,749 45.4% 50.5%
064 37,396 46,264 42.5% 52.6%
092 35,180 40,269 44.8% 51.3%
093 36,501 44,700 43.2% 52.9%
094 33,630 39,603 44.3% 52.1%
097 35,954 44,647 43.0% 53.4%
122 51,488 69,624 41.2% 55.7%
126 32,979 38,409 44.6% 52.0%
133 36,456 50,069 40.9% 56.2%
032 28,939 36,856 42.2% 53.7%
070 46,349 75,914 36.6% 60.0%
084 21,625 34,530 36.8% 58.8%
085 31,967 42,990 41.6% 55.9%
089 39,378 56,345 39.8% 56.9%
106 50,925 71,782 39.9% 56.3%
129 35,326 46,707 41.5% 54.8%
150 38,995 55,111 40.0% 56.6%
Not a whole lot to say here. The near-misses look farther away, and the reaches look out of reach. It’s important to remember that a lot of these districts weren’t on anyone’s radar going into 2016, and that the trend has been heavily favorable to the Democrats. We certainly hope those trends continue, but even if they do that doesn’t mean the district in question is on the verge of being competitive.
Here are the districts that Trump won or came close it. For this, I’m going to reprint the Biden/Trump numbers, to make it easier to illustrate the point I want to make.
Dist Hegar Cornyn Hegar% Cornyn%
========================================
031 23,609 28,980 43.5% 53.4%
074 22,397 25,232 45.5% 51.2%
034 27,567 26,236 49.8% 47.4%
035 22,735 18,926 52.7% 43.8%
080 25,339 19,960 54.1% 42.6%
038 28,050 20,464 56.2% 41.0%
041 29,594 24,797 52.8% 44.3%
117 49,759 40,386 53.6% 43.5%
118 31,726 25,841 53.5% 43.6%
144 16,246 14,108 51.8% 45.0%
Dist Casta Wright Casta% Wright%
========================================
031 24,700 26,837 46.5% 50.5%
074 22,942 23,836 47.4% 49.2%
034 27,816 24,985 51.0% 45.8%
035 23,684 17,094 56.2% 40.5%
080 25,945 18,750 56.2% 40.6%
038 29,097 18,502 59.2% 37.7%
041 30,611 22,881 55.5% 41.5%
117 49,871 38,567 54.2% 41.9%
118 32,568 24,454 55.2% 41.5%
144 16,851 13,251 54.1% 42.6%
Dist Biden Trump Biden% Trump%
========================================
031 25,315 33,101 42.9% 56.1%
074 23,478 27,319 45.6% 53.1%
034 29,226 26,606 51.7% 47.0%
035 24,991 21,049 53.8% 45.3%
080 26,251 22,543 53.3% 45.8%
038 29,116 21,573 56.8% 42.1%
041 31,956 25,187 55.5% 43.7%
117 53,983 39,495 56.8% 41.6%
118 34,228 25,848 56.2% 42.4%
144 17,365 14,599 53.6% 45.0%
We don’t see the same pattern here that we did before. In these districts, Trump is outrunning Cornyn and Wright. Biden is still outperforming Hegar and Castaneda, but not by as much. That makes HDs 31 and 74 closer, especially for Castaneda. This suggests two things to me. One is that as was claimed in that Texas Signal story, there really was more of a Trump effect than a Republican shift. It also appears that Castaneda benefitted from her Latina surname; one could also argue that Cornyn got some incumbent benefit as well. The main point is that the story of these districts is a little more nuanced than some of the discourse would have you believe. Doesn’t mean there aren’t issues for Dems to confront, just that it’s not a one-dimensional situation.
Finally, here are the districts that the Dems picked up in the 2016 and 2018 cycles.
Dist Hegar Cornyn Hegar% Cornyn%
========================================
045 57,413 54,996 49.5% 47.4%
047 69,906 66,452 50.2% 47.7%
052 51,448 45,369 51.6% 45.5%
065 40,789 38,039 50.3% 46.7%
102 37,879 29,970 54.5% 43.1%
105 31,769 24,477 54.8% 42.2%
107 34,360 26,248 55.1% 42.1%
113 36,185 31,239 52.2% 45.0%
114 42,291 36,918 52.3% 45.6%
115 39,307 31,859 53.8% 43.6%
135 37,050 36,728 48.9% 48.4%
136 55,420 44,710 53.8% 43.4%
Dist Casta Wright Casta% Wright%
========================================
045 54,943 53,725 48.2% 47.1%
047 66,419 64,426 48.7% 47.3%
052 48,688 44,402 49.7% 45.3%
065 39,040 36,949 49.2% 46.6%
102 37,549 28,844 54.5% 41.9%
105 31,723 23,639 55.2% 41.1%
107 34,364 25,234 55.5% 40.8%
113 36,116 30,540 52.4% 44.3%
114 42,043 35,411 52.6% 44.3%
115 38,704 30,803 53.5% 42.6%
135 36,487 35,845 48.6% 47.8%
136 52,576 43,535 52.0% 43.0%
Even with the erosion of support from the top of the ticket, Dems still held these districts at the Senate and RRC level. The gain were maintained. I know what the narrative for 2020 was, but it’s hard for me to see that as anything but a rousing success.