Now that I have addressed the question of the effect of straight ticket voting on the city propositions, the next question is to figure out how they did in Republican and Democratic areas. To try and get a handle on this, I sorted the precincts into strong and weak partisan groups, based on the straight ticket vote in each. “Strong R” precincts are ones in which Republicans got 60% or more of the straight ticket vote, “Weak R” are the ones in which they got between 50 and 60%; the “Strong D” and “Weak D” precincts are the converse. Here’s how it looks:
Type Pro 1 Con 1 Pro 3 Con 3 For 1% For 3% ============================================================ Strong R 61,883 71,602 72,660 63,802 46.36 53.25 Weak R 17,251 13,683 16,419 15,269 55.77 51.81 Weak D 17,424 13,762 16,172 15,930 55.87 50.38 Strong D 69,557 61,463 53,908 82,292 53.09 39.58
The numbers don’t add up to the official totals because of the partial precincts that were excluded. I have to say, I was more than a little surprised by this. I would have assumed that Republicans would have been the primary opponents of the red light cameras, but that was not it at all. From what I saw, Prop 1 got a fair number of Democrats riled up – though as you can see, in the end Democrats were its biggest supporters – but I never saw or heard of any argument over red light cameras. The depth of animosity towards the cameras from Democratic voters just came out of left field for me.
As for Prop 1, you can look at this data and say that the Texas Conservative Review endorsement either had no real effect, or might have saved it by blunting opposition to it just enough. I’m agnostic about that, so either one can work for me. Here’s another view of the data from Greg Wythe, which shows the results from each election in certain key precincts:
Anglo Dem Neighborhoods Prop1 Prop3 Heights ......... 57.1 ... 52.2 Meyerland ....... 54.9 ... 59.6 Rice U .......... 65.2 ... 63.8 Montrose ........ 70.6 ... 55.0 African-American Neighborhoods Prop1 Prop3 Acres Homes ..... 45.8 ... 32.8 UH/TSU .......... 49.8 ... 36.0 Fifth Ward ...... 46.9 ... 28.5 Hiram Clarke .... 49.8 ... 36.7 Sunnyside ....... 49.2 ... 29.4 Anglo GOP Neighborhoods Prop1 Prop3 Clear Lake ...... 45.1 ... 50.0 Galleria ........ 50.1 ... 59.4 Kingwood ........ 34.9 ... 43.9 Garden Oaks ..... 42.2 ... 51.2 River Oaks ...... 56.1 ... 62.1 Sharpstown ...... 49.8 ... 55.1 Spring Branch ... 43.6 ... 53.7 Memorial ........ 44.3 ... 60.6 Hispanic Neighborhoods Prop1 Prop3 Hobby ........... 46.6 ... 41.6 East End ........ 55.2 ... 46.5 Near Northside .. 55.2 ... 44.6 Multicultural Neighborhoods Prop1 Prop3 Alief ........... 57.4 ... 44.6
If this summary looks familiar, it’s because Greg did something very much like it for the 2009 election. For Prop 3, the division was entirely racial: Anglo voters supported the red light cameras, people of color did not. As for Prop 1, I thought the late opposition from the four African-American members of Council might be a death blow for it, but in the end that doesn’t seem to have had that much of an effect. (Yes, you could make the same argument here as for TCR.) Maybe their message didn’t penetrate that much, I don’t know. It’s something to think about, that’s for sure.
By the way, Greg is back from his blogging hiatus, and he’s got maps a-plenty for those of you who like that sort of thing – you know who you are. Go pay him a visit and see the election in multicolored hues.
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I’m not sure I follow the logic of why Rs would dislike red light cameras more than Ds, not that the reality of diminishing civil liberties seems to bother much of anybody any more. Personally, I think this was just another “loser pays” revenue grab, combined with privatization, with a lagniappe of “if you don’t BREAK THE LAW you don’t have anything to worry about” that all together would seem to make most Rs just deliriously happy. If safety was really the issue, all you have to do is make the yellows longer.
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