Here’s where I’ll be tracking results as they come in, which should be soon now. I’m in the studio at KRTK, the livestream URL is http://abc13.co/abc13CK+, and we should be kicking off soon. Harris County results are here. Get ready, it’s about to begin.
Update, 7:10 PM – Harris County numbers are up. Davis trails by about 22,000 votes, 52.49% to 46.39%. This is right in line with my Sunday projection. The margin for Dems downballot is mostly wider. A good showing today is needed.
Update, 8:15 PM – Still no E-Day totals in Harris. Libby Willis trails in SD10 – Tarrant votes are here. All the statewides have been called for the Rs, it’s a question of the margins.
Update, 9:25 PM – Hard to find much positive right now. Dems are on track to lose three seats in the Lege – HDs 23 (Eiland, retiring), 117 (Cortez), and 144 (Perez). The latter two should flip back in 2016, but still. Dems are doing better in Harris County on E-Day, but Davis was still behind in Harris by 18K votes, and she was leading the pack.
Update, 10 PM – It’s a wrap for me at KTRK, and I’m probably going to pack it in and head home and to bed. Needless to say, this has been a crappy night all around. One oddity on the state results is that Travis County as of this posting hasn’t reported anything but early votes. In the end, I doubt we’re going to see any improvement on the base vote total. It’s disappointing on many levels, not the least of which is that I don’t think there’s a big surge in Republican voting, either. It looks like a 2002 result all over again, frankly. If you want something that looks like good news, Dems did do better in the big counties than they did in 2010. Not that that’s a high bar to clear, of course. There’s still a lot of work to be done, that’s for sure. I’ll have my own thoughts later, after I get some rest.
Reason Travis County was late in reporting totals (from the Austin American Statesman)
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/williamson-travis-officials-plan-meeting-for-elect/nhz8b/
“Williamson County and Travis County officials will meet in the next couple of days to figure out a way to streamline election data between the two counties so results can be reported faster, said Michael Winn, the director of elections for Travis County.
Williamson County sends data to Travis County about elections affecting Austin because parts of Austin lie within Williamson County. Travis County could not produce final voting results until after 2 a.m. Wednesday because the data it received from Williamson County was in a different computer format than what Travis County uses, Winn said.
The two counties use different types of voting machine systems, and Winn said he has to manually take the data he receives from Williamson County and enter it into the Travis County system. The process took more than an hour, he said.”