PREVIOUSLY:
Dist Craddick Culbert Lib Grn
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CD02 99,112 65,117 3,921 3,996
CD07 66,167 95,853 3,751 5,025
CD08 71,653 66,412 3,176 5,058
CD09 31,772 90,778 2,260 4,700
CD18 61,743 139,540 5,594 8,483
CD22 16,983 10,714 706 758
CD29 53,055 84,694 2,793 8,434
CD36 93,185 54,483 3,636 4,175
CD38 209,116 115,654 7,421 7,149
SBOE4 144,116 303,971 9,583 20,025
SBOE6 324,158 250,499 14,084 16,055
SBOE7 1,743 4,598 106 188
SBOE8 232,769 164,177 9,485 11,510
SD04 75,213 47,859 3,051 3,078
SD06 69,664 105,281 3,781 10,180
SD07 212,146 131,261 8,010 9,277
SD11 78,346 42,310 3,019 3,127
SD13 37,147 125,543 3,283 6,336
SD15 122,253 184,683 7,852 10,515
SD17 78,670 60,200 3,043 3,419
SD18 29,347 26,108 1,219 1,846
HD126 46,572 28,491 1,795 2,012
HD127 52,454 34,911 2,101 1,922
HD128 45,069 18,387 1,508 1,485
HD129 50,334 31,533 2,135 2,186
HD130 61,876 26,437 2,156 1,759
HD131 10,161 31,625 713 1,824
HD132 52,402 35,183 2,021 2,351
HD133 43,010 30,091 1,565 1,546
HD134 40,812 54,725 2,086 2,206
HD135 27,597 31,849 1,380 2,572
HD137 11,385 15,880 663 1,162
HD138 40,880 29,366 1,574 1,858
HD139 17,462 38,232 1,406 2,137
HD140 10,497 16,130 540 1,893
HD141 8,196 27,561 753 1,588
HD142 14,911 34,106 1,030 1,943
HD143 14,314 19,773 618 2,148
HD144 19,018 18,188 752 2,121
HD145 19,684 35,133 1,729 2,810
HD146 12,316 40,331 1,058 1,593
HD147 14,989 45,537 1,549 2,519
HD148 22,682 25,448 1,356 2,270
HD149 19,664 24,722 889 1,855
HD150 46,501 29,606 1,881 2,018
CC1 102,345 247,214 8,216 12,470
CC2 142,792 131,392 6,215 12,565
CC3 294,960 182,839 11,217 11,783
CC4 162,689 161,800 7,610 10,960
JP1 89,208 142,105 6,183 8,511
JP2 34,916 37,739 1,476 3,597
JP3 53,273 56,668 2,373 3,670
JP4 230,183 165,212 9,428 10,984
JP5 202,470 182,146 8,592 12,278
JP6 8,410 20,662 730 2,239
JP7 18,768 83,172 1,981 3,670
JP8 65,558 35,541 2,495 2,829
HISD 148,086 283,328 10,295 15,830
Else 554,700 439,917 22,963 31,948
Dist Craddick Culbert Lib Grn
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CD02 57.57% 37.83% 2.28% 2.32%
CD07 38.74% 56.12% 2.20% 2.94%
CD08 48.98% 45.39% 2.17% 3.46%
CD09 24.53% 70.09% 1.75% 3.63%
CD18 28.67% 64.79% 2.60% 3.94%
CD22 58.24% 36.74% 2.42% 2.60%
CD29 35.61% 56.85% 1.87% 5.66%
CD36 59.93% 35.04% 2.34% 2.69%
CD38 61.62% 34.08% 2.19% 2.11%
SBOE4 30.17% 63.63% 2.01% 4.19%
SBOE6 53.60% 41.42% 2.33% 2.65%
SBOE7 26.27% 69.30% 1.60% 2.83%
SBOE8 55.69% 39.28% 2.27% 2.75%
SD04 58.21% 37.04% 2.36% 2.38%
SD06 36.88% 55.73% 2.00% 5.39%
SD07 58.82% 36.39% 2.22% 2.57%
SD11 61.79% 33.37% 2.38% 2.47%
SD13 21.56% 72.86% 1.91% 3.68%
SD15 37.58% 56.77% 2.41% 3.23%
SD17 54.13% 41.42% 2.09% 2.35%
SD18 50.15% 44.61% 2.08% 3.15%
HD126 59.05% 36.12% 2.28% 2.55%
HD127 57.40% 38.20% 2.30% 2.10%
HD128 67.82% 27.67% 2.27% 2.23%
HD129 58.40% 36.59% 2.48% 2.54%
HD130 67.09% 28.66% 2.34% 1.91%
HD131 22.92% 71.35% 1.61% 4.12%
HD132 56.99% 38.26% 2.20% 2.56%
HD133 56.43% 39.48% 2.05% 2.03%
HD134 40.88% 54.82% 2.09% 2.21%
HD135 43.53% 50.24% 2.18% 4.06%
HD137 39.14% 54.59% 2.28% 3.99%
HD138 55.48% 39.86% 2.14% 2.52%
HD139 29.48% 64.54% 2.37% 3.61%
HD140 36.12% 55.51% 1.86% 6.51%
HD141 21.51% 72.34% 1.98% 4.17%
HD142 28.68% 65.60% 1.98% 3.74%
HD143 38.84% 53.65% 1.68% 5.83%
HD144 47.45% 45.38% 1.88% 5.29%
HD145 33.16% 59.19% 2.91% 4.73%
HD146 22.27% 72.93% 1.91% 2.88%
HD147 23.20% 70.50% 2.40% 3.90%
HD148 43.82% 49.17% 2.62% 4.39%
HD149 41.72% 52.45% 1.89% 3.94%
HD150 58.12% 37.00% 2.35% 2.52%
CC1 27.64% 66.77% 2.22% 3.37%
CC2 48.74% 44.85% 2.12% 4.29%
CC3 58.90% 36.51% 2.24% 2.35%
CC4 47.42% 47.16% 2.22% 3.19%
JP1 36.26% 57.76% 2.51% 3.46%
JP2 44.92% 48.55% 1.90% 4.63%
JP3 45.93% 48.86% 2.05% 3.16%
JP4 55.36% 39.73% 2.27% 2.64%
JP5 49.93% 44.92% 2.12% 3.03%
JP6 26.25% 64.49% 2.28% 6.99%
JP7 17.44% 77.30% 1.84% 3.41%
JP8 61.60% 33.40% 2.34% 2.66%
HISD 32.37% 61.92% 2.25% 3.46%
Else 52.85% 41.92% 2.19% 3.04%
Whatever the year is, you can generally count on the Democratic candidate for Railroad Commissioner to bring up the rear in the statewide vote count. That’s not a candidate recruitment issue – since 2018, we’ve had a string of well-qualified people run for this office. Our Grady Yarbrough days seem to be behind us, thank goodness. It hasn’t made any difference in the final score.
This is partly because no one knows what the Railroad Commission does and no one knows who’s running for it – there’s just no money raised, at least on the Dem side, for these races. It’s also because of the disproportionate number of third party votes cast in these races. This was a down year for third party candidates overall/ For statewide offices this year, there were only two Green Party candidates, one for President and one for Railroad Commissioner. The Libertarians were slack as well, just those two races plus US Senate and one judicial race. In 2016, by way of comparison, there was a Libertarian and a Green for President, RRC, and five of six judicial races; the sixth had just a Libertarian. In 2020, there were both Libs and Greens for President, Senate, and RRC, with a Libertarian for two of seven judicial races. No idea where they all were this year, but you can see where they weren’t.
Be that as it may, in the Presidential race there were 150K votes cast for an L or a G. In the Railroad Commissioner race, it was 587K votes, nearly four times as many, and that’s with about 400K fewer votes cast in the RRC race. Both Christi Craddick (293K fewer votes than Trump) and Katherine Culbert (560K fewer votes than Kamala Harris) suffered for it, with Culbert getting more of the damage. The Green candidate in this race was a Latino, which as I’ve noted before tends to make things a little worse for the Democratic candidate.
Not that it would have made that much difference had it been Craddick versus Culbert straight up, with Culbert having a few million dollars at her disposal. Dems lost statewide by roughly year-2012 margins for reasons that were mostly about national conditions. But my point, as I made in that post I linked above is that both parties, but Dems more than Republicans, seem to lose votes in the lower-profile races for no particularly good reason to third party candidates. Eight years after I pondered that question, nothing has changed.
I continue to see this as a brand issue, one that Dems don’t take seriously at all, and it’s one that in a better overall year – which, who knows, might be 2026 if we’re about to enter a real shitshow biennium – could be costly at the margins. Given that at least as far as the RRC goes the candidates are not the problem, then to me it’s mostly a matter of money. With a few exceptions, our non-incumbent candidates don’t have the resources to get a message of any kind out to voters. That’s not good for them, and it’s not good for the larger project of giving voters reasons to maybe consider voting for a Democrat.
I wish I had a better answer than “we need more money for more Democratic candidates in more races”, because it’s not prescriptive and no one likes to talk about money in campaigns except to say there’s too much of it. In the aggregate that’s true, but it’s also true that many people like to hear from candidates on their ballot before they’ll consider voting for them, and that doesn’t happen for free. I don’t know what to tell you.
Republicans = low taxes and pro-life.
Democrats = gay rights and pro-choice
The above, unfortunately, is how people have learned to see the parties.
Fifty years of lies by the Republicans with no response from the Democrats has made it so.