We have been told that this was a year where many people were unhappy with the two main choices they had for President. We looked at Presidential numbers in Harris County before, and now we’re going to look again, at write-in candidates and at undervotes.
Dist McMullen All WI McMullin% All WI%
=========================================
HD126 354 417 0.57% 0.67%
HD127 444 521 0.60% 0.70%
HD128 152 192 0.25% 0.32%
HD129 364 446 0.52% 0.64%
HD130 479 554 0.59% 0.68%
HD131 63 87 0.14% 0.19%
HD132 398 461 0.57% 0.67%
HD133 425 517 0.56% 0.68%
HD134 627 707 0.69% 0.78%
HD135 268 316 0.44% 0.52%
HD137 89 100 0.32% 0.36%
HD138 234 293 0.45% 0.57%
HD139 113 135 0.21% 0.26%
HD140 36 47 0.13% 0.17%
HD141 22 42 0.06% 0.11%
HD142 141 150 0.31% 0.33%
HD143 32 46 0.10% 0.14%
HD144 39 56 0.14% 0.20%
HD145 64 80 0.18% 0.21%
HD146 234 267 0.48% 0.54%
HD147 164 179 0.28% 0.31%
HD148 283 324 0.58% 0.66%
HD149 117 145 0.27% 0.33%
HD150 505 596 0.66% 0.78%
Dist None Total None %
==============================
HD126 1,349 63,214 2.13%
HD127 1,480 75,620 1.96%
HD128 909 60,656 1.50%
HD129 1,307 71,355 1.83%
HD130 1,501 83,009 1.81%
HD131 899 47,459 1.89%
HD132 1,285 70,519 1.82%
HD133 1,914 78,173 2.45%
HD134 2,313 93,167 2.48%
HD135 1,111 61,619 1.80%
HD137 590 28,027 2.11%
HD138 1,049 52,787 1.99%
HD139 1,056 53,829 1.96%
HD140 637 28,652 2.22%
HD141 726 39,243 1.85%
HD142 819 46,243 1.77%
HD143 663 34,279 1.93%
HD144 601 28,120 2.14%
HD145 753 35,918 2.10%
HD146 936 50,081 1.87%
HD147 1,205 59,489 2.01%
HD148 1,083 49,819 2.17%
HD149 973 44,955 2.16%
HD150 1,463 78,180 1.87%
The first table documents the votes for Evan McMullin, who drew by far the most votes among the thirteen certified write-in candidates, which means the thirteen whose votes were actually counted. The second column is for all write-in votes for the given district. There were 6,510 total write-in votes, with McMullin receiving 5,647 of them. To put that in some perspective, Ralph Nader received 1,716 write-in votes in 2004, for 0.17% of the vote. McMullen had 0.43% of the vote, a hair less than half of Jill Stein’s 0.90% share.
Not surprisingly, McMullin drew most of his votes in heavily Republican districts. That’s no doubt because McMullin ran as a viable alternative for Republicans who were unhappy with Trump, and because there were more Republicans in those places. The two districts that stand out here are HDs 128, the only Republican district where McMullin finished below his countywide percentage, and 146, the only Democratic area where he outperformed the overall number. My guess for HD128 is that the voters there were just happier with Trump than voters elsewhere. As for HD146, I got nothing. Feel free to speculate about that in the comments.
The second table is for undervotes, which is to say the people who did not vote in the Presidential race. As you might imagine, that is usually the race that has the lowest undervote rate. This year, the undervote rate in the Presidential race was 1.99%; the next lowest rate was in the Tax Assessor’s race, where 3.47% skipped it. County judicial races were around five percent. Before I talk about the rates in each district, here’s how the Presidential undervote compared to other years:
Year Undervote Under%
=========================
2016 26,622 1.99%
2012 15,381 1.28%
2008 17,185 1.45%
2004 20,692 1.90%
Gotta say, I would not have expected 2004 to have had that many undervoters. I don’t see much of a pattern here. HD128 again demonstrated its satisfaction with the candidates by having the lowest undervote rate, but the districts that gave McMullin the most support did not necessarily have high undervote rates. Both Democratic and Republican districts above average and below average. Maybe you see something there, and maybe if I went down to the precinct level I’d see something, but right now I don’t. It just is what it is.
I’m going to take a crack at Fort Bend and Dallas Counties next week. As always, let me know what you think.