I’m going to do my best to stay out of this. Everyone quoted is someone I know and like, and if there’s one part of the political process I truly don’t care for, it’s the family fight. So I’m just going to offer a few observations and move on.
– The absentee ballot program was a success, and it definitely was an improvement over previous elections, but let’s keep some perspective. The difference in the total number of Democratic absentee votes between 2014 and 2010 is about 11,000 straight ticket votes, and about 17,000 total votes. That’s without taking into account whether these were new voters or the same old reliables that would have voted in person had they not received a mail ballot. I mentioned several times during early voting that some number of new mail voters were surely people changing behavior. It would be nice to know how many of these votes were by the usual crowd and how many represented a genuine new vote in this election. That data exists, and it’s what we should be talking about. There’s value to expanding the mail program even if it’s little more than a convenience for regular voters, but if that is the case then let’s treat it as such and not as a strategic advantage.
– It was great to see so many new voters registered, in Texas and especially in Harris County, but those elevated registration numbers did not lead to an accompanying boost in turnout, especially in Harris County. How many of those new registrants actually voted? Again, that data exists, and we need to know it. If they turned out at about the same rate as other voters, or if they didn’t, should inform how we approach this going forward.
– I have a draft canvass now, and I am working my way through it. One thing to note is that no Democrat carried HD144. Rep. Mary Ann Perez came closest, and ran two or more points ahead of the rest of the ticket. The good news, if you want to look at it that way, is that overall HD144 was slightly less Republican this year than it was in 2010. Dems can and should reclaim this seat in 2016. They need to start engaging voters now to do so, and they should plan to continue engaging voters after that to try to hold this seat in 2018. Maybe the redistricting litigation will change the calculus here going forward, but that shouldn’t change the basic lesson that we need to learn here.
– By the same token, Democrats carried HD149 up and down the ballot. Rep. Hubert Vo was the pace-setter, but even in a year like this it was a blue district. In HD134, Dan Patrick was apparently a little too scary for the voters there, as Leticia Van de Putte was the only Democrat to win it. Make of that what you will.
I’ll have more going forward, but this will do for now.