Either bring me some real data or leave these just so stories alone.
Rep. Sarah Davis
Judging from Donald Trump’s unpopularity in Dallas County, Morgan Meyer and Angie Chen Button should have been doomed this November.
Meyer and Button are the only two remaining Republican state House members in the state’s second-most-populous county, where former Vice President Joe Biden’s margin over Trump was nearly 32 percentage points.
The margins were slimmer in Button’s and Meyer’s districts: Biden won Button’s district by 9 percentage points and Meyer’s by 14.
Still, the two Republicans will be returning to the Texas House next year. According to unofficial vote counts as of Friday, Button eked out a win by 223 votes. (Her Democratic opponent, Brandy K. Chambers, conceded last week, saying she won’t call for a recount.) Meyer won by a larger, but still narrow, margin of 1,634 votes.
What appears to have been their lifeline was a willingness of some Texas voters to split their tickets, rejecting Trump but nonetheless pulling the levers for the Republican Party’s other candidates. And it may have been aided by lawmakers’ decision to eliminate straight-ticket voting in the state, starting with this year’s election.
“Republicans are probably breathing a sigh of relief that they didn’t invite people to take the easy way out” and do straight-ticket voting, said Sam Martin, an associate professor at Southern Methodist University. “The decision to end straight-ticket voting came at exactly the right moment for them.”
“It gives conservatives the opportunity to vote against Trump, but stick with their team,” Martin said.
Republicans weren’t the only beneficiaries of split tickets, however: State Rep. Ryan Guillen, D-Rio Grande City, and Eddie Morales Jr., who will replace state Rep. Poncho Nevárez, D-Eagle Pass, won their Democrat-held seats near the Texas-Mexico border after Trump carried each district by more than 50% of the vote share.
You know who wasn’t a beneficiary of the removal of the straight ticket option? Sarah Davis, who was ousted this year after winning in 2018, in a district that Beto O’Rourke carried with 60% of the vote, with the straight ticket option still available. This year she had a better opponent, and enough voters decided it was time for a change.
The issue is not the straight ticket option. People always had the ability to hit the straight ticket button and then change whatever votes they want to. They also had the option of not using it. People who wanted to vote a straight ticket, whether that meant pushing one button or 54 buttons (as was the case in Harris County this year), did so. It just took them longer. As the story notes later on, there are just fewer people who see value in splitting their tickets these days. If you want to lament that, I say place your blame on Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell. In the meantime, this horse is dead. Please stop hitting it.
In my view the difference between Sarah Davis’ loss in HD 134, and Morgan Meyer’s and Angie Chen’s victories is the margin of the Biden victory, coupled with increased voter polarization across the board.
Biden led by more than 20 points in HD 134, while Meyer and Chen faced headwinds of 14 and 9 points, and squeaked by.
I see no evidence that removal of the straight ticket option had any significant impact, but Professor Mark Jones has noted that the result might have been different if without extended early voting there had been really long lines at the polls, and voters had been in a rush.
Also, HD 134 is one of the most highly educated districts in the state, and so I would expect removal of straight ticket voting to have limited effect there anyway.
anecdotally, it took the average voter a little over 2 minutes to vote straight ticket even with 54 races. interestingly, there appeared to be less “under vote” than normal but I personally think it was because more focus by both sides was put on going “all the way down the ballot”