As you know, I kept track as best I could of endorsements that candidates received on my 2011 Election page. Now that the regular election is over, I thought it might be interesting to go back through those endorsements and see how many winners and losers each organization picked. The full results are beneath the fold, as it’s a lot of information.
– I followed my own links from that page to each endorsement list. A couple of the links were no longer functioning, so I skipped them.
– I counted the total number of endorsed candidates for each group, and from there totaled and listed the winners, losers, and runoff participants. A few organizations made dual endorsements in various races. With one exception, I counted both of the dual endorsees. The one exception was for the Christians for Better Government (CFBG) endorsement in the HCC IV race – they “endorsed” each of the two candidates running. To my way of thinking, that’s useless, so I ignored it for these purposes.
– Most of these organizations are PACs, so their endorsements also imply financial support for their candidates. As such, and given that most PACs stick with incumbents, the vast majority of these groups have a very high winner percentage. Nearly all of them backed the right horse 60% of the time or more.
– Of course, no organization is required to offer an endorsement in any given race. Nearly all of them skipped at least one race; even if you limit the scope to just Houston races, not HISD or HCC, many of them bypass at least one race. There are a variety of reasons for this: Some races do not have a candidate who is suitable for the issues the group espouses; some candidates choose not to screen for whatever the reason; some groups eschew endorsing in uncontested races; some prefer not to make a call when there’s more than one acceptable candidate, preferring to wait till a runoff; some require a supermajority vote of their membership; and so on and so forth. One result is that this tends to inflate winning percentages as well, since you can skip the hard-to-prognosticate multi-entrant open seat races.
– No organization backed only winners, but three had no losers, at least before the runoff. Those were as follows: HAR, with 14 of 16 winners; KEY, with 12 of 16; and 80-20, with 12 of 14.
– The top five winning percentages belonged to HAR (14 of 16, 87.5%); HAA (13 of 15, 86.7%); PPHSET (12 of 14, 85.7%); 80-20 (12 of 14, 85.7%); and CFBG (19 of 23, 82.6%).
– Only three organizations failed to have a majority of their candidates win. They were the CCLUB (4 of 11, with 3 in the runoffs); NKTA (3 of 10, with 1 in the runoffs); and Steven Hotze’s Conservative Republicans of Texas, which came in after early voting was over and which I didn’t bother to link to. They backed the winner a puny 2 of 14 times, with 2 other candidates in the runoff. With that one and CCLUB, ideology was the prime factor, so several easy races were skipped and numerous long-shot challengers were supported. NKTA is a single issue group – “NKTA” stands for “No Kill Texas Advocates”; they advocate “to stop the needless killing of healthy and treatable pets in Texas animal shelters through legislation and political advocacy”. If all you care about is one issue, you stand with whoever answers your questions the way you want them to and that’s all there is to it. I don’t disparage these philosophies – indeed, putting aside my feelings about ideology, I admire the approach – but if one goes this way, one has to be able to accept an alternate measure of success.
Anyway. Beneath the fold is the full accounting. We’ll see how the runoff changes things.
Endorsed: 19
Winners: 14 (Parker, Cohen, Adams, Pennington, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, Laster, LGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford, CRobinson, Harris, Stipeche)
Losers: 2 (Kathy Daniels, Peter Lyn René)
Runoff: 3 (Stardig, Thibaut, Jones)
Endorsed: 16
Winners: 12 (Annise Parker, Ellen Cohen, Ed Gonzalez, James Rodriguez, Mike Laster, Larry Green, Stephen Costello, Melissa Noriega, C.O. Bradford, Paula Harris, Juliet Stipeche)
Losers: 2 (Jenifer Pool, Ramiro Fonseca)
Runoff: 2 (Jerry Davis, Jolanda Jones)
Endorsed: 9
Winners: 6 (Parker, Cohen, JRodriguez, Laster, LGreen, Noriega)
Losers: 2 (Pool, Bryan Smart)
Runoff: 1 (Jones)
Endorsed: 9
Winners: 6 (Parker, Ronald Green, Costello, Noriega, Bradford, Rhonda Skillern-Jones)
Losers: 2 (Karen Derr, Pool)
Runoff: 1 (Jones)
Endorsed: 23
Winners: 19 (Parker, RGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford, Cohen, Wanda Adams, Mike Sullivan, Al Hoang, Oliver Pennington, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, Laster, LGreen, Manuel Rodriguez, Harris, Stipeche, Richard Schechter, Chris Oliver)
Losers: 1 (Phillip Bryant)
Runoff: 3 (Brenda Stardig, Andrew Burks, Jones)
Endorsed: 20
Winners: 14 (Parker, RGreen, Cohen, Adams, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, LGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford, Carroll Robinson, Skillern-Jones, Harris, Stipeche)
Losers: 3 (Fonseca, Derr, Criselda Romero)
Runoff: 3 (Alvin Byrd, Kristi Thibaut, Jones)
Endorsed: 14
Winners: 12 (Parker, RGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford, Cohen, Adams, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, LGreen, Harris, Stipeche)
Losers: 1 (Fonseca)
Runoff: 1 (Jones)
Endorsed: 14
Winners: 11 (Parker, RGreen, Cohen, Adams, Sullivan, Pennington, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, Costello, Noriega, Bradford)
Losers: 1 (Laurie Robinson)
Runoff: 2 (Stardig, Thibaut)
Endorsed: 15
Winners: 11 (RGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford, Cohen, Adams, Sullivan. Gonzalez, JRodriguez, Laster, LGreen)
Losers: 2 (Fernando Herrera, LRobinson)
Runoff: 2 (Thibaut, Stardig)
Endorsed: 20
Winners: 12 (Parker, RGreen, Cohen, Adams, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, LGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford, Stipeche, CRobinson)
Losers: 6 (Derr, Romero, Pool, Bo Fraga, Fonseca, Wendell Robbins)
Runoff: 2 (Davis, Jones)
Endorsed: 16
Winners: 14 (Parker, RGreen, Cohen, Adams, Sullivan, Hoang, Pennington, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, Laster, LGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford)
Losers: 0
Runoff: 2 (Stardig, Jones)
Endorsed: 15
Winners: 9 (Parker, RGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford, Adams, Laster, LGreen, CRobinson)
Losers: 4 (Daniels, Derr, David Robinson, Robbins)
Runoff: 2 (Thibaut, Jones)
Endorsed: 13
Winners: 10 (Parker, Cohen, Adams, Pennington, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, Laster, LGreen, Costello, Noriega)
Losers: 2 (DRobinson, LRobinson)
Runoff: 1 (Stardig)
Endorsed: 16
Winners: 12 (Parker, RGreen, Cohen, Adams, Sullivan, Hoang, Pennington, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, Laster, LGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford)
Losers: 0
Runoff: 4 (Stardig, Davis, Thibaut, Jones)
Endorsed: 11
Winners: 9 (Parker, Adams, Sullivan, Pennington, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, Laster, Noriega, Bradford)
Losers: 1 (Brian Cweren)
Runoff: 1 (Stardig)
Endorsed: 21
Winners: 16 (Parker, RGreen, Cohen, Adams, Hoang, Pennington, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, LGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford, CRobinson, Schechter, Oliver, Stipeche)
Losers: 4 (Fraga, Romero, LRobinson, Fonseca)
Runoff: 1 (Stardig)
Endorsed: 17
Winners: 14 (Parker, RGreen, Cohen, Adams, Sullivan, Hoang, Pennington, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, Laster, LGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford)
Losers: 1 (LRobinson)
Runoff: 2 (Stardig, Davis)
Endorsed: 14
Winners: 12 (Parker, RGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford, Cohen, Sullivan, Hoang, Pennington, Gonzalez, Laster, LGreen)
Losers: 0
Runoff: 2 (Stardig, Jones)
Endorsed: 10 (Note: Mayor Parker was endorsed later by both groups)
Winners: 7 (Parker, Costello, Noriega, Bradford, Adams, Gonzalez, LGreen)
Losers: 2 (Derr, Romero)
Runoff: 1 (Jones)
Endorsed: 15
Winners: 13 (Parker, RGreen, Adams, Sullivan, Hoang, Pennington, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, Laster, LGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford)
Losers: 1 (Cweren)
Runoff: 1 (Stardig)
Endorsed: 18
Winners: 13 (Parker, Cohen, Adams, Pennington, Gonzalez, Rodriguez, LGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford, CRobinson, Harris, Stipeche)
Losers: 2 (Elizabeth Perez, Fonseca)
Runoff: 3 (Stardig, Davis, Jones)
Endorsed: 13
Winners: 9 (Cohen, Pennington, Gonzalez, JRodriguez, Laster, LGreen, Costello, Noriega, Bradford)
Losers: 3 (René, DRobinson, LRobinson)
Runoff: 1 (Byrd)
Endorsed: 11
Winners: 4 (Sullivan, Pennington, Bradford, CRobinson)
Losers: 4 (Cweren, Fraga, Perez, LRobinson)
Runoff: 3 (Stardig, Davis, Jack Christie)
Hotze/Conservative Republicans of Texas
Endorsed: 14
Winners: 2 (Sullivan, Hoang)
Losers: 10 (Dave Wilson, Jack O’Connor, Bryant, Cweren, Clyde Bryan, Leticia Ablaza, Pat Frazier, Scott Boates, Perez, Chris Carmona)
Runoff: 2 (Helena Brown, Christie)
Endorsed: 10
Winners: 8 (RGreen, Costello, Noriega, Cohen, Adams, Laster, Gonzalez, JRodriguez)
Losers: 2 (DRobinson, Amy Price)
Runoff: 0
Endorsed: 10
Winners: 3 (Noriega, Bradford, Pennington)
Losers: 6 (Herrera, Don Cook, Rozzy Shorter, Kenneth Perkins, Joshua Verde, Ablaza)
Runoff: 1 (Jones)