To some degree, but I wouldn’t overstate it.
Rep. Gene Green
When Adrian Garcia called last month asking for support in his congressional bid, East End community activist Jessica Hulsey did not hesitate.
“I said, ‘Adrian, you’re my brother,’ ” Hulsey, 65, recalled. “ ’I identify with you, and I identify the need.’ ”
Fresh off an unsuccessful Houston mayoral run, the former Harris County sheriff is looking to fill that need by empowering a growing Latino community in the 29th Congressional District.
His bid to unseat longtime Democratic Congressman Gene Green promises to again test the burgeoning power of the Hispanic vote.
Drawn in 1991 to reflect the area’s Hispanic population, the 29th District never has had a Latino representative, despite the influx of Hispanic residents.
From 1992, when Green was first elected, to 2012, the Latino share of the district’s population climbed 16 percentage points to more than 76 percent, higher than all but four congressional districts nationwide, according to the Pew Research Center. Hispanics make up about 61 percent of the 29th District’s eligible voters.
[…]
Adrian Garcia
“Garcia has structural advantages in this race that make the race tilt in his favor,” Texas Southern University political scientist Michael Adams said, pointing to the fact that the area was designed as a Hispanic-opportunity district.
However, University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray said that even with demographics on Garcia’s side, it may be difficult for him to overcome Green’s financial advantage, familiarity with the district and establishment backing.
The fundraising arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus recently endorsed Green, who had $1.2 million in the bank as of last September, and many of the local elected officials whose districts overlap with Green’s quickly lined up behind the congressman. They included state Sens. Sylvia Garcia and John Whitmire, and state Reps. Carol Alvarado, Garnet Coleman, Ana Hernandez and Armando Walle.
“You can’t block up the Latino vote very easily if a bunch of the opinion leaders are saying, ‘No, no, yeah we want a Hispanic district, but not with this Hispanic,’ ” Murray said. “In terms of winning this district in a short fuse, one-on-one primary, that’s gonna be tough.”
Garcia’s candidacy also has created some enmity among local Democrats with long-standing ties to Green.
“Gene Green, everybody loves Gene Green,” said Freddy Blanco, a Democratic precinct chair in the East End. “No elected official responds the way he responds immediately.”
I’ll say again, as with just about every election involving an incumbent, it’s about whether the voters want to replace this person with that person. They’ll have their own criteria for that. This district was drawn to elect a Latino, and the historic nature of Adrian Garcia being elected may well sway some folks, but Gene Green isn’t a 20+ year incumbent by accident. He’s popular among the voters in CD29 and he will get plenty of Latino votes – he’s already received a lot of institutional Latino support. I’d be wary about drawing any conclusions about “the power of the Latino vote” regardless of the outcome in this race.
One more thing:
Without a contested Democratic primary in more than two decades, it is difficult to project March turnout. Yet Rice University political scientist Bob Stein estimated that 37,500 to 40,000 ballots would be cast in the district in the Democratic primary, about 53 to 57 percent of them by Hispanic voters.
About 42,000 voters cast a ballot in 29th district Democratic primary in 2008. That figure dropped to just 6,200 in 2014.
Of course, Democrats broke records for primary turnout in 2008, with over 400,000 March ballots being cast in Harris County. With Clinton/Sanders likely to be still burning bright, I’d expect decent turnout in the county, though not at that level. Maybe 200,000 overall? That might be high, but I don’t think it’s out of the question. I’m totally guessing. Whatever the case, I do agree that CD29 will be leading the pack.