Last week, we looked at the competitive At Large Council races. Now let’s look at the three At Large races that weren’t competitive. First up is At Large #1, where CM Stephen Costello won a third term.
Dist Costello Griffin Costello% Griffin%
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A 5,465 4,784 53.32% 46.68%
B 5,535 4,291 56.33% 43.67%
C 15,767 7,919 66.57% 33.43%
D 7,852 6,098 56.29% 43.71%
E 7,844 5,554 58.55% 41.45%
F 3,241 2,247 59.06% 40.94%
G 12,328 7,177 63.20% 36.80%
H 5,024 2,492 66.84% 33.16%
I 4,702 2,416 66.06% 33.94%
J 2,549 1,749 59.31% 40.69%
K 6,620 4,643 58.78% 41.22%
This is a solid, across-the-board victory, with no obvious weak spots though perhaps some softness here and there. Greg, who has one of his customary color-coded maps, summarizes as follows:
Costello’s win certainly qualifies as a win and I won’t take anything away from it. There are more than one ways to look at the map below and one of them goes something like “Gee, that certainly is a broad base of support throughout the city.” But it still looks a bit weak when you look at how broad the 35-40% of what I’ll chalk up to as “anti-incumbent” vote.
I don’t think that a bar owner most familiar for his displays of team loyalty in the Luv Ya Blue era of Oiler football qualifies as a candidate with massive amounts of name ID. I could be wrong, but I don’t think there’s always a given that Griff earns a solid 30-40% of the vote just by putting his name on the ballot.
Keeping the dream alive
It’s an interesting question: How much of the Griff Griffin vote is an actual vote for Griff Griffin, and how much is basically a vote for “not the incumbent”? To try to answer that, because I’m just that kind of sucker, I went back and looked at every previous election that featured Griff somewhere on the ballot:
2011 AL2 (open), 10 candidates, 8.22%
2009 AL2 (Lovell), 4 candidates, 19.97%
2007 AL2 (Lovell), 2 candidates, 47.12%
2005 AL1 (open), 3 candidates, 17.06%
2001 AL4 (open), 5 candidates, 13.73%
1999 District C (open), 7 candidates, 15.32%
January 1997 AL4 (open), 16 candidates, 6.40%
1997 AL5 (open), 9 candidates, 13.45%
1995 AL3 (open), 11 candidates, 11.31%
1993 AL3 (open), 14 candidates, 7.08%
What do we take away from this, other than Griff has a preference for open seat races? Given that he has run in many multi-candidate races where there was likely to be at least one acceptable choice to even the most curmudgeonly, there’s a core of maybe 10 to 15% of the electorate that will choose to vote for Griff. Note that in several of these races, Griff finished third or fourth in the large field of candidates, so by any reasonable accounting he’s at least one step up from a placeholder. Viewed in that light, Costello’s performance looks a little better. And for what it’s worth, the one other time Griff ran in a two-candidate race, he got 47% of the vote against then-CM Sue Lovell. CM Costello easily cleared that mark. Make of all that what you will.
Here’s At Large #4:
Dist Bradford Dadoush Bradford% Dadoush%
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A 7,990 2,228 78.20% 21.80%
B 10,861 835 92.86% 7.14%
C 17,525 5,185 77.17% 22.83%
D 14,861 1,551 90.55% 9.45%
E 10,315 3,280 75.87% 24.13%
F 4,133 1,388 74.86% 25.14%
G 15,450 3,865 79.99% 20.01%
H 5,909 1,685 77.81% 22.19%
I 5,472 1,780 75.46% 24.54%
J 3,422 964 78.02% 21.98%
K 10,350 1,824 85.02% 14.98%
Now that’s a dominant victory. CM Bradford made a point of telling me, after I’d interviewed him, that he was not a candidate for Mayor in 2015. It wouldn’t make sense for him to support Ben Hall, he told me, if he wanted to be Mayor in 2015. All that may be true, but it’s hard to look at these numbers and not see a potentially formidable Mayoral candidate. He’d have some tough competition – besides Costello, Sheriff Adrian Garcia is said to be interested in running, and there’s still Ronald Green and a whole lot of others that are at least thinking about it – but after three easy electoral victories citywide, he has to be considered one of the top dogs.
Finally, At Large #5:
Dist Christie Shabazz Horwitz Christie% Shabazz% Horwitz%
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A 6,709 2,199 1,258 65.99% 21.63% 12.37%
B 3,353 6,183 762 32.56% 60.04% 7.40%
C 13,603 4,092 4,189 62.16% 18.70% 19.14%
D 4,677 9,133 1,209 31.14% 60.81% 8.05%
E 9,207 2,315 1,676 69.76% 17.54% 12.70%
F 2,852 1,756 817 52.57% 32.37% 15.06%
G 15,167 2,441 2,249 76.38% 12.29% 11.33%
H 3,345 2,700 1,064 47.05% 37.98% 14.97%
I 3,236 2,615 979 47.38% 38.29% 14.33%
J 2,337 1,273 635 55.05% 29.99% 14.96%
K 4,841 5,009 1,477 42.74% 44.22% 13.04%
Consider this: Ben Hall, who ran a year-long multi-million dollar campaign for Mayor, received 23,055 votes in Council districts B, D, and K, where he needed to run up the score in order to have a chance to make a runoff against Mayor Parker. Carolyn Evans-Shabazz, a late filing, low-dollar candidate in At Large #5, received 20,325 votes in those districts, with a higher percentage of the vote in all three. Had the undervote rate been remotely comparable between the two races – 28.03% of all Harris County voters in AL5 simply skipped the race, ten times as many as the 2.76% undervote for Mayor – she would almost certainly have collected more total votes in these districts than he did. Have I made it clear yet how poor a performance Hall had?
As for Christie, he’s sort of the alternate universe in which Bill Frazer gets elected Controller. You can see what Frazer’s path forward might be based on Christie’s better numbers in Democratic districts, and you can also see where Christie could be in trouble against a stronger opponent or pair of opponents, in particular against opposition that gets an earlier start. There are going to be two open At Large seats in 2015, and I won’t be surprised if the winner of the Kubosh/Morales runoff faces a strong challenger. For that matter, the field for Controller is pretty open beyond Frazer if he’s into it. Christie might wind up getting a pass just because there are enough other opportunities available for the ambitious. Regardless, my point is that it’s better to start early than jump in at the last minute. Greg has more.
Charles – as always an interesting and insightful analysis of the behavior of voters and candidates. I think you are right on…Bradford looks invincible and can write his own ticket…for just about anything but Mayor and then he becomes another face in a crowded field…although a big face…when playing with SYlvester Turner, Chris Bell, Sue Lovell, Bill King, and Adrian Garcia (although for the love of me I cannot see the upside of leaving a pretty secure countywide elected position to become Mayor). Costello can and will be a player, but the performance was not overwhelming and I’m not sure where he pulls votes in a truly crowded field. Christie is a goner if credible opposition gets out and about ealier than Septmeber 1…and so called progressive organizations don’t give their endorsements to CHristie just because he’s there like they did this year. As for Ron – we had this discussion just days before the election, only thing that surprised me, because I thought the baggage made him a goner, was how strongly the good government type progressive white Democrats either didn’t take a stand or voted against him. For his sake, thank God for the African American and Mexican American boxes….in my humble opinion his next step should be the private sector where he can make some money because this performance pretty well cinched it for me he does not have a rosy future in electoral politics. Look forward to your analysis of 2 and 3, where we go and what happened and is happening.
I don’t agree that Costello’s performance was lackluster. I think Griff has decent name ID from multiple races, and is associated with sports interests such as bringing the Olympics to town, and may have benefitted from the turnout of sports enthusiasts for the Dome referendum.
I agree Hall’s results were abysmal, and my view is that he will be unable to ever succeed in local politics again. I think voters will forever remember him as a tax dodger, pompous, elite, carpetbagger, and thus he is a damaged brand.