I was up really late last night, and there’s still a lot of votes to be counted. The SOS website was mostly trash, but a lot of county election sites took their sweet, sweet time even reporting any Election Day results. So here’s what I know right now, and I’ll have more tomorrow.
– The Presidential race is still unsettled as a lot of votes are to be counted. That may take a few days, but indications are decent for Biden at this point.
– Not in Texas, though. Biden was approaching five million votes as I write this, but he was trailing by six percent. The other Dems running statewide were losing by nine or ten. Still a fair number of Republicans who didn’t vote for Trump, and that made things redder downballot than you might have expected from the topline result. In a sense, 2020 was like 2018, in that the top Dem outperformed the others running statewide, but the gap at the top was wider.
– As of this writing, Dems appear to be on track to picking up one SBOE seat (SBOE5), reclaiming SD19, and likely sweeping the Appeals Court races that are anchored in Harris County; I have not checked the other Appeals Court races. Ann Johnson has knocked off Sarah Davis in HD134, and Gina Calanni is losing in HD132. Jon Rosenthal has a slim lead in HD135, while the two remaining Dallas County Republicans (Morgan Meyer in HD108 and Angie Chen Button in HD112) are hanging in, though Button’s lead is slimmer than Rosenthal’s. All other State House incumbents are winning, and all of the open seats are being held by the same party, which means that if all these races remain as they are…the composition of the Lege will be exactly as it is now, 83-67. Not what we were expecting, to say the least.
– Also not what we were expecting: As I write this, no Congressional seats appear poised to flip. Reps. Lizzie Fletcher and Colin Allred were re-elected, and Republicans have held onto all of their imperiled districts. Chalk that up to Trump and the rest of the statewide Rs doing better than the polls had suggested. One unexpectedly close race is in CD15, where Rep. Vicente Gonzalez was only leading by 6K votes as I write this. That said, none of the Election Day results from Hidalgo County were in for that race – all other counties except tiny Wilson were fully reported – so I would expect Gonzalez to win by a larger margin in the end.
(I should note that there’s a dispute in CD23, because of course there is.)
– Which leads to the uncomfortable fact that Trump did a lot better in the predominantly Latino counties in the Valley. I’m not going to get into that at this time – I guarantee, there are already a thousand thinkpieces about it – but the pollsters that showed him doing better and Biden lagging Clinton from 2016 were the winners of that argument. There will be many questions to be answered about that.
– Nothing terribly interesting in Harris County. Dems won all the countywide seats, but as noted lost in HD132 and HD138, and also lost in County Commissioners Court Precinct 3, so the Court remains 3-2 Dem. Note that Commissioners Court does its own redistricting, and after the 2010 election the Republican majority made CC2 a bit redder. I fully expect CC3 to shift in the Dem direction in the next map – it too was made redder after 2010 – but we’ll see how much of a difference it makes. Tom Ramsey has his work cut out for him. One change way downballot was Democrat Israel Garcia winning in the Justice of the Peace Precinct 5 race, knocking off longtime incumbent Russ Ridgway. Precinct 5 Constable Ted Heap managed to hang on.
– With 683 of 797 voting centers reporting, there were 1,595,065 votes cast in the Presidential race. Way down at the bottom of the ballot, in the two HCDE Trustee At Large races, there were 1,516,025 and 1,513,125 votes cast, a dropoff of about five percent. I think that should settle the straight-ticket voting question, at least for now.
– Fort Bend County completed its transition to Democratic. All Democratic countywide candidates won, with Eric Fagan becoming the first Black Sheriff in that county. Congratulations to all the winners.
I’ll have much more to say soon, but this is where we are very early on Wednesday morning. Good night and try to remain calm.
Democrats need to find out why the Mexican American vote voted in such large numbers for Trump. Starr County Texas the most Hispanic county in Texas voted 47% for Trump. They voted over 80% for Obama, and by 60% for Hillary. It was not just for president it was down ballot also.
Beto won by over 50% of the vote.
Having large number of relatives in Starr County I would not be surprised that immigration is the reason for supporting the Republican Party. They are tired of all the illegal entries which creates problems for them (I ask when I visit). The ones coming now are less likely to be from Mexico and the culture is much different. Many of the people that live there have been here since the creation of Texas.
People down there are socailly conservative, in fact when Gina Ortiz Jones came out that she was Gay earlier this year, I shook my head and asked myself why couldn’t she wait after the election. That fact that she was a Felipina already didn’t help her she was running against a person of Mexican Descent.
Democrats have their work cut out for them.
The people that are here Temporarily, I don’t understand them, another Trump win and they will probably be deported and yet they make no effort to help themselves by encouraging those that can vote to vote to help them. I know people that can vote and have family here that are not legally here, choose not to vote. I am baffled by them, if they are not willing to help themselves why would they expect others to help?
The super interesting part about the Valley is the raw vote totals.
Biden basically did as well as Clinton did in South Texas, but a lot of people who haven’t voted in past elections turned out for Trump. The obvious conclusion is that the Latino non-voters weren’t exactly disposed to voting for Democrats.
Pingback: Followup omnibus Election Day post – Off the Kuff
Social media disinformation was a huge factor jn this shift. The Texas Democratic Party establishment has been negligent in not identifying and counteracting.
So, instead of Texas being a non-voting state (re the NYT piece of a week ago) it voted after all, with flipping?
Maybe that “controversial” UH poll from a week ago had independent voters right after all.
Manny,
So what I am hearing from you is, apparently, lots of Americans of Mexican descent are racist homophobes because they support President Trump. LOL! You identified their issues, yet you STILL don’t get it, Manny. They’re tired of illegals flooding into THEIR country, they have conservative social values; in their culture, being gay or otherwise sexually deviant is NOT considered a plus. In short, they’re just like every other non progressive American. They are Americans, Manny. They are Americans that believe in America as founded, and don’t want, for example, their kids being taught that America’s founders were evil. They don’t appreciate the left denigrating America. They celebrate America’s founding fathers just like Texans celebrate Texas heroes, like Juan Seguin or Sam Houston.
I was afraid this would happen to you, Manny. You’re facing the cognitive dissonance of your delusions meeting actual reality, and you’re left bewildered.
Pro-tip: All those Trump voters in Starr County that voted Trump are NOT racist homophobes. They are proud Americans who reject socialism and depravity.
Bill,
I think you mean Mexican American conservative rapists and murderers.
Excellent analysis!
You should post this as a Letter to the Editor in the Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, El Paso Times, Corpus Christ Caller Times, and the newspapers in the Valley and Laredo!
Bill, I was wondering if my dog whistle to you would get you out of your dog house and get you to come and bark like the whiny female dog that you are.
As to them being homophobic you may be correct, they tend to be very socially conservative. As to the immigration yes they are tired of it, but that would not be the sole reason they would vote for Trump, if it is. It would not surprise me that they thought that he sent them the stimulus money, after all he made sure everyone got a letter. If I still had an outhouse like we used to have when I grew up, I know what it would have been used for. After all look at Alaska where the Republicans have a little Venezula like state that they are bankrupting a la Hugo Chavez by handing out thousands of dollars to each person every year. They are starting to run out of money like Venezula did when the price of oil went down. Wait till those American farmers stop getting their hand outs and see how they act. It my tariff money that they are handing out to farmers to do nothing.
As to immigration and me, you are one very stupid racist. If you recall I have always stated that I don’t support illegal immigration. When I ran for city council I stated that I would make all contracts require that workers be here legally. I was against NAFTA and voted for Ross Perot because of that. I believed and time has proved me correct that it would result in high paying jobs going to Mexico. What I object to is how you refer to people that look like me. I, also, believe that Republicans are the reason that many of them are here. I have been advocating for E-Verify since the passing of NAFTA. However your people like the low wage people and welcome them with open arms and then pretend that they are destroying America.
As to what they want taught you would have no idea, your are a senile whiny female dog that barks at everything you don’t like.
Manny,
Have you visited a legal marijuana state recently? I ask, because that tale you just told is so far out of character, it sounds like an actual pipe dream. When did you stop supporting the hordes of illegals pouring into our country? Yesterday? You’ll note that Trump ran and won on stopping illegal immigration, building a wall, and actually protecting our borders. You correctly assess that people in our border communities benefit from that, and now you claim you support stopping illegal immigration, but you hate the guy who is actually doing what it takes to stop it. Over 400 miles of wall; more going up weekly. Immediate removal for all illegals caught….no mas catch and release.
And then you denigrate your fellow Hispanics. Gee, they must be babosos, they think Trump sent them the check. Way to go, Manny, I’m sure all those folks in the valley really appreciate being called dumb fucks. Your people. You just called YOUR people dumb fucks. Wow. I’ve been to the Valley many times. They are good, hard working, friendly people. Not stupid, although one wonders how Beto got elected to anything, but that’s beside the point.
As to Alaska, that was certainly out of left field, but at least tell the truth. Alaska has no state income tax, and sends each resident $ 1,000, calling it a dividend from the North Slope oil money. Maybe you’ve noticed Tejas has no state income tax, either. Part of the reason is the money the state makes on oil and gas. Does that upset you that Texas has not state income tax? Are you a freeloader, Manny?
If you are upset the money you spent on tariffs upsets you…..stop buying Chinese shit, Manny! Your purchases are supporting their ‘belt and road’ long term plan to take over the world and depose us as the superpower. Pro-tip: that’s bad. You don’t want the CCP running the world, you just don’t. Trust me.
And finally, I don’t know why you are so down on Hugo Chavez. He promulgated the same shit the DNC platform is espousing……free healthcare, free college, take the guns. The reason Trump was successful with Hispanics is, many of them come from failed socialist countries just like Venezuela. They know that shit doesn’t work. They know the suffering it causes and……they won’t vote for it here.
As to Ross Perot, nice try. I voted for Ross….twice. Ross was right. Hell, Ron Paul was right. NAFTA really was the giant sucking sound of jobs leaving, then letting China into the WTO and giving them developing world status absolutely screwed over the American workers, depressed wages, etc. And Joe Biden was an ardent supporter of all that. No way you voted for Ross Perot and then turned around and voted for Joe Biden.
Admit it, Manny, you’re a bitter old racist socialist, like your La Raza buddy Johnny Mata. Other people have let go of their hate, let go of their racism….but not you. The shit you just claimed to support? Trump is doing it. Your post was one gigantic lie, Manny. At least admit it to yourself.
Brad,
Crazy how quickly you’ll toss people under the bus if they leave the plantation. Oh, you loves dem brown folks, but wait. What? A significant portion of them voted for Trump? Those Trump voting brown people are rapists and murderers!
If you don’t know whether you’re for Biden or Trump, then you ain’t black! Or brown, apparently.
Bill I called your people dumb F**s, all ethnicity and races have them here in American you all lead percentage and number.
Bill you are really going crazy, but that is expect from a whiny female dog, like you. Then again you are just like the orange buffoon.
Bill those people from Cuba and Venezula are here because they didn’t stay there to fight. They chose to run.
Bill from 3 years ago on Big Jolly
“Manuel Barrera
3 years ago
E-Verify Dan was how immigration was suppose to have been controlled, and it works to a large degree. Is it perfect of course not, nothing is. ”
I am glad that I got you whiny female dog, because I think that Democrats need to look at the county were votes for Trump increased from 4 years ago because I think that the Trump party has engaged in fraud and that many of the Trump voters are not existent, heck they may have used people here illegally to vote for Trump. Cause here in Harris County as Mexican looking folks voted overwhelmingly for Biden.
Corrections
here in America
look at the counties
As to the Raza Unida, I am proud of my features and culture, I don’t deny that.
Enough with the foreplay, you two need to get a room.
Want to make it a three way, C..L.
Thank for the offer, but no.