The one election of interest within Harris County that wasn’t mostly or entirely within Houston was the Metro referendum. Let’s have a look at how that vote went.
Dist Yes No
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A 18,795 10,648
B 15,120 4,037
C 32,384 12,659
D 19,304 4,823
E 15,912 12,942
F 9,357 3,699
G 20,985 14,163
H 11,049 4,065
I 8,439 3,282
J 5,208 2,063
K 14,987 4,509
A 63.84% 36.16%
B 78.93% 21.07%
C 71.90% 28.10%
D 80.01% 19.99%
E 55.15% 44.85%
F 71.67% 28.33%
G 59.70% 40.30%
H 73.10% 26.90%
I 72.00% 28.00%
J 71.63% 28.37%
K 76.87% 23.13%
Where Yes No
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Houston 171,540 76,890
Not Hou 51,323 28,676
Houston 69.05% 30.95%
Not Hou 64.15% 35.85%
I’ve said before that blowout elections lead to boring precinct analyses, and here you can see a good example. The referendum passed by big margins everywhere, inside Houston and out. It helped that advocates had plenty of money while opposition was sparse. I doubt it would have mattered much in the end – the 2003 referendum passed despite much fiercer resistance, after all – but you have to think that the absence of a vocal and powerful Congressional adversary had to make this a lot easier for Metro. And that’s just fine by me.