Tag Archives: Election 2016

Initial thoughts about the election

And now for some reactions and analysis… – The polls were garbage. Oy vey. Not just here, though they were definitely off here, underestimating Trump and the Republicans after doing the same to Beto and the Dems in 2018. This … Continue reading

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So what happened in the Latino counties?

Let’s go to the data: County Trump Clinton Trump Biden ============================================= Bexar 240,333 319,550 303,871 440,823 Cameron 29,472 59,402 48,834 63,732 Dimmit 974 2,173 1,384 2,264 El Paso 55,512 147,843 81,235 168,801 Frio 1,856 2,444 2,812 2,421 Hidalgo 48,642 118,809 … Continue reading

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Omnibus Election Day post

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 … Continue reading

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The role Harris County can play in turning Texas blue

Big county + big turnout = big margin. Texas is not the sort of place national candidates visit just before Election Day or where political ads play on a loop during popular TV shows. And, yet, here we are: Texas … Continue reading

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A focus on the SCOTX races

With so much litigation over a variety of voting issues, the Supreme Court of Texas is in the news a lot these days. Will that mean more attention being paid to the four races for SCOTX positions? The sleepy contests … Continue reading

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A few thoughts about Election 2020 before Tuesday

Just a brain dump, to get this all out there before we find out what happened. Let’s start with this: After the conclusion of three weeks of early voting, 9.7 million Texans have cast ballots, crushing previous early voting totals … Continue reading

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Once again with Asian-American voters

Long story in the Trib, on a topic that could use more focus. When Debbie Chen temporarily closed her Houston restaurant in March due to the coronavirus, she was worried about her health and her financial livelihood. But as a … Continue reading

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Of course Republicans have benefited from voting by mail

Obviously. And yes, even in recent elections. The coronavirus pandemic is expected to drive millions of Americans to vote by mail this year, a shift that data suggest is underway even in Texas, where only some voters are allowed to … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Eighteen: Records were broken

I know, I skipped Day Seventeen, but since the daily EV totals came in at a more manageable hour last night (since early voting once again ceased at 7 PM), I was able to get the latest totals in. So … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Sixteen: All through the night

This post is scheduled to publish before 5 AM today. When that happens, voting will still be happening in Harris County. In Harris County this year, residents can vote where the Rockets or Texans play, from the comfort or their … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Fifteen: Now with evening hours

In case you haven’t heard, Texas is in play. It’s six days from a presidential election, and the anchor of the Republican Electoral College coalition—Texas—is a toss-up. That is not just us being goofballs and throwing around dramatic words. “Toss-up” … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Fourteen: Where will we end up?

Because we like starting with tweets: . Welp. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/texas/ — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) 5:58 PM – 25 October 2020 That was from Sunday, after the UT-Tyler poll was factored in. As you may know, there have been two polls released … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Thirteen: In the home stretch

Twitter time: . According to the Texas Secretary of State, 7,193,582 Texans had voted as of Saturday, a turnout of 42.43% of registered voters. Texas turnout for *all* of 2016 (including Election Day) was 8,969,226, so the state is already … Continue reading

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Please don’t screw up SD19 this time

Here’s hoping. If elected to the Texas Senate, Roland Gutierrez promises not to end his tenure in federal prison. During a September phone call, the six-term state House rep assured me: “I’ve led my life as a responsible person; my … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Twelve: Second Saturday

Where we are. Harris County surpassed 1 million ballots cast Friday, setting an early voting record with seven days remaining, in spite of the lingering COVID-19 pandemic and a flurry of lawsuits over the management of the election. The county … Continue reading

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Overview of Harris County Sheriff’s race

The explanation for why Sheriff Ed Gonzalez is a big favorite to be re-elected is quite simple, really. County veterans wondered if former Houston police officer-turned politician Ed Gonzalez would be up to the job of sheriff in 2016 after … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Eleven: We reach one million

Let’s take a brief detour to Fort bend County. Fort Bend County voters continue to smash early-voting records — with a greater share of voters turning out so far than in populous Harris and Dallas counties, according to a news … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Ten: Closing in on 2016

A couple of tweets to get us started: . 1.3 million (25%) ofTX early voters so far did not vote in 2016. #txlege — Keir Murray (@houtopia) 2:40 PM – 21 October 2020 I talked about the likely percentage of … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Nine: Starting to run out of clever subtitles

And now, for something slightly different, Part One: This was hard for Jacob Monty. As a lifelong Republican, the 52-year old Houston attorney has been in the trenches with former President George W. Bush, never voted for a Democrat for … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Eight: Any idea what pattern we’ll follow?

The Chron provides five takeaways from early voting so far. Democrats appear to be doing well in Harris County, but don’t call it a wave yet. Turnout to date has been strong in precincts carried by Trump and Clinton in … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Seven: It’s Day One all over again, sort of

Here’s a mid-day headline that needed some revision by the evening. Harris County is on pace to reach half of of 2016’s total voter turnout by Monday evening, the county clerk reported. By 11 a.m. Monday, the seventh day of … Continue reading

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PPP: Cornyn 49, Hegar 46

Of interest. Last week PPP took a look at the Presidential race in Texas, and this week we checked in on the Senate race. MJ Hegar trails John Cornyn just 49-46, making up for the Republican lean of the state … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Six: And now we start the “normal” early voting period

I’m just going to jump right into the data here. The Day Six daily EV totals are here. You can find the daily totals for 2008 and 2012 (and 2016 as well, but I’ve got a separate link for it) … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Five: How not to look at the early voting totals

From Twitter on Friday: . Biden needs a rout in Harris County (#Houston) to have any chance of winning TX. We’ve had 3 days of record-shattering turnout and by tonight may have 500k votes. But so far, Biden probably isn’t … Continue reading

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All those voter registration efforts did what they set out to do

News item #1: Texas adds nearly 300,000 more voters in the last two weeks, approaches 17 million voters overall. In just two weeks, Texas added more than 284,000 more voters to its rolls just before the registration deadline and now … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Four: One hundred thousand is the magic number

Lather, rinse, repeat. The county announced it had passed the 100K mark in a tweet just after 6 p.m. It was the four straight day with more than 100,000 ballots cast by county voters. Those four days now mark the … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Three: It’s still raining voters out there

People want to vote. About 1.9 million Texans had cast ballots in-person or by mail as of Wednesday, according to state and county election data, continuing to crush state records for early voting. The 2020 presidential election is expected to … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day Two: One million votes on Day One

Pretty impressive so far. More than a million Texans have already cast ballots after just the first day of early voting. And the state isn’t even finished counting the first day’s numbers. Record breaking early voting, combined with unusually high … Continue reading

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November 2020 Early Voting Day One: People sure were ready to vote

You’re going to hear the words “record-breaking” a lot. More than 125,000 Harris County residents went to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots on the first day of early voting, smashing the county’s previous records. As of about 7:30 p.m., … Continue reading

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2020 early voting starts today

From the inbox: The Early Voting period for the November 2020 General Election begins tomorrow, Tuesday, October 13th, and continues through Friday, October 30th. This is the longest Early Voting period in Texas history, and voters who are not eligible … Continue reading

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Military ballots

When we talk about the deadline to print and send out mail ballots, we are specifically talking about ballots sent to active duty military personnel, which by federal law are to be sent out 45 days before Election Day to … Continue reading

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UT/Trib: Trump 50, Biden 45

I’ll get into a broader discussion in a minute, but for now, there’s this: President Donald Trump leads former Vice President Joe Biden with the support of 50% of the state’s likely voters to Biden’s 45% in the 2020 race … Continue reading

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How many undervotes would it take?

This story about the race for County Clerk has broken me. [Stan] Stanart has finished in line with the Republican straight-ticket vote in each of his three elections, winning the clerk seat in 2010 with 53 percent of the vote … Continue reading

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It’s Julie Oliver week

Julie Oliver, the Democratic candidate in CD25, is getting a fair bit of attention this week. First, there’s this Statesman story about what her path to victory looks like. On a recent Zoom fundraiser with Beto O’Rourke, Democratic congressional candidate … Continue reading

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