TX-28 primary

[Sam Spade]

For a little reference, here is a picture of the CD in question.



I have zero polls on this contest and I doubt any will appear, except partisan ones.  Bush won this CD by 5 points in 2004, but there will be no Republican opponent come November and the Republican bench in this area is pretty much nil.

As an FYI as to the dynamics in this race, Cuellar will dominate in the Southern part of this CD around Laredo (his home base).  Rodriguez is from San Antonio and will have to post strong numbers in lower Bexar county in order to have a shot.  The rest of this CD should be friendly to Cuellar, if they show up to vote at all.

The real question will be turnout in these sorts of primaries.

[Sam Spade]

As Texas has open primaries won't Cuellar benefit from the support of Republicans and conservative Independents? 

He could, since there will be no Republican candidate this October. 

I would expect the effect to be minimal, but if does occur, the part of the CD where you would most likely see those type of votes is Guadalupe County, in the Seguin/New Braunfels part of the map.  There are a lot of German Republicans in those areas.

[Sam Spade]

What are the chances of Cuellar running against Cornyn in 2008?  I actually think he would be an excellent Senator.  If he could only get past the first hurdle of being elected, then prove himself as a moderate who won the support of Democrats and Republicans, he could easily rival Hutchison in terms of popularity.  What I mean is, his approvals would be 55%-70%, but being elected and re-elected might be less easy.

Imo, Cornyn is going to be hard to beat in 2008, because of the simple fact it is a Presidential year more than anything else.

Still, if anyone can, it would be Cuellar.

[Sam Spade]

Main worry if Cueller loses is what he does next. Think about it; defections have not exactly been rare in Texas politics and just because the GOP doesn't really exist in south Texas doesn't mean that it will *never* exist down there...

My thoughts exactly.  Of course, it wouldn't affect this term; if you get defeated in the primary, you're done.

But the last thing the Democrats in Texas would want to have happen is a defection from Cuellar, who is extremely, extremely popular in Webb County and the Laredo area in general.

[Sam Spade]

Ah yeah ... I'd like some background on the 2004 primary race actually. Not on how it got decided - I know all about that - but why did Cuellar decide to run against Rodriguez? What was the campaign fought on? Where did Cuellar's money come from? I remember that in 2002, Cuellar almost took out Rep. Henry Bonilla (R), but his vote base was regerrymandered out of Bonilla's district after that.

Well, your memory is basically correct.  As for Cuellar's money, I don't think his family particularly endowed him with any.  He's been a lawyer and was a State House Rep. from Laredo for quite a long time before being Secretary of State under Gov. Rick Perry and Congressman.  I think he had a considerable money-raising advantage before the left really started outreach towards Rodriguez, but I don't think his campaign had more than say $500,000 or so.

About the campaign in 2004, I really don't think there was any other reason other than, Henry Cuellar wanted to run for Congress.  It was highly amusing, since Rodriguez had supported and run strong for Cuellar in 2002 against Bonilla.

Besides, I think Cuellar saw an opportunity at that time (in the same way he did in 2002 against Bonilla) because Rodriguez was voting far to the left of his CD, examples being voting against the partial-birth abortion act and against the War in Iraq, which both went against this socially conservative CD with a high number of military people. (and still do, at least in the partial-birth abortion thingy). 

Rodriguez, of course, ran against him as being a fence-sitter and being to willing to work with Republicans, somewhat the same strategy as he's using in this election.

Anyway, this contest will be highly regional, moreso than about ideology, frankly.  In 2004, Cuellar got 85% of the vote in Webb County and Rodriguez got 80% of the vote in Bexar County.  Turnout will be the important influence, along with whether either candidate can bite into the others' margin in these counties.

[Sam Spade]

Democracy for America's e-mail described "recent polls" showing Rodriguez down by 5.  No data provided.

That was a Rodriguez released internal poll, done roughly 1 and 1/2 weeks ago.

I posted it on my TX primary thread.  It was also posted on Kos, Swing State, etc.

[Sam Spade]

Henry Cuellar          1,282    45.54%
Victor Morales       330     11.72%
Ciro D. Rodriguez    1,203     42.74%

1.45% of precincts reporting

The game really won't begin until Webb and Bexar counties start reporting.  Stay tuned.

[Sam Spade]

Henry Cuellar          1,282    45.54%
Victor Morales       330     11.72%
Ciro D. Rodriguez    1,203     42.74%

1.45% of precincts reporting

The game really won't begin until Webb and Bexar counties start reporting.  Stay tuned.

When can we expect it to be all done and dusted? It's 2.22AM (GMT)

Dave

I expect some non-early voting results to come in within about 30 min. - 1 hour.  When I lived in Houston, the results usually started to come in sometime between 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM CST. 

Now, with South Texas, that could be totally different. 

Besides, both campaigns have to plant their typical South Texas ballot boxes filled with uncounted votes, so they have enough votes to win. 

[Sam Spade]

If I had a dollar for every time jfern said DINO....

[Sam Spade]

Bexar early county results starting to show up in the totals.

[Sam Spade]

51% of Precincts Reporting

Rodriguez 56
Cuellar 37
Morales 7

This isn't looking good although I'm not sure which precincts are reporting.

Webb County has still reported nothing.  That's the county to watch for.

[Sam Spade]

51% of Precincts Reporting

Rodriguez 56
Cuellar 37
Morales 7

This isn't looking good although I'm not sure which precincts are reporting.

Webb County has still reported nothing.  That's the county to watch for.

Kerry carried it 57-43 which makes me think it would be friendly towards Rodriguez.

Webb County (Laredo area) is Cuellar's home base (along with Zapata County).

He pulled 85% of the vote from there in 2004.

[Sam Spade]

How Hispanic is TX-28?

Dave

Majority-Hispanic.

[Sam Spade]

Nothing in from Webbe yet. Is Webbe the most populous county?

Dave

Bexar County is the most populous part of the CD, I'm pretty sure.  And it's almost done reporting at present (87 precincts out of 102).  Once it gets done, I'll try and compare the numbers to 2004, when Rodriguez won 80% of the county.

We're probably headed for a runoff, but I really can't tell until Webb reports and I look at turnout.

[Sam Spade]

You can find it here. Search under County Race summary for the gritty details.

http://elections.sos.state.tx.us/elchist.exe

[Sam Spade]

Webb County has still reported nothing.  That's the county to watch for.

Kerry carried it 57-43 which makes me think it would be friendly towards Rodriguez.

In the 2004 primary, Cuellar polled 84% of the vote, and Webb County outpolled Bexar County, even though it has about 1/3 the population.
[/quote]

Yep, Cuellar is somewhat of a folk hero among all those *DINOs* down in Laredo.  Probably has something to do with his being a state House rep. from there for 18 years.

[Sam Spade]

News Flash from the Laredo Morning Times:

http://www.lmtonline.com/site/news.asp?brd=2290

Voting woes

Because of a technical difficulty, results from the Democratic and Republican primaries have been delayed.

The machine built to read the personal electronic ballots was incorrectly programmed, and as a result the votes must be extracted from flash cards attached to each machine.

Officials with the Webb County Elections Administration were unsure Tuesday how long the delay would last.

[Sam Spade]

If you take out Webb Co. in 2004, Cuellar wins 65-35, however, I suspect Cuellar's numbers there might be a bit down given the fact he's in the U.S. House now and has more of a voting record to defend.

He'll get about 80%-85% of the vote there.  Watch for it. 

The myDD people have been hearing rumors earlier that there were 21,000 early votes in Webb County.  I don't know whether I believe that or not, but turnout is has always been high in Webb County when Cuellar has run for the House.

For reference, I urge you to use the link I just gave you and visit the 2002 General Election under Webb County and read the results for CD-25 as well. 

Then I urge you to compare turnout for Webb County then compared to Webb County in the 2004 election.  Granted, it also helped that the Gubernatorial candidate was also from Webb County, but the number is almost ridiculous.

[Sam Spade]

Webb County early voting out, still no word from precincts:

Cuellar 8,145 (86.76%)
Rodriguez 789 (8.40%)
Morales 454 (4.84%)

Total vote now (190 out of 276 precincts)

Cuellar 16,705 (48.76%)
Rodriguez 15,408 (44.98%)
Morales 2,145 (6.74%)

[Sam Spade]

Dammit you just beat me it to it Sam

That's quite a big change just from early voting.

Told ya.   

This whole primary is a good example of the old favorite saying of Al's, "All politics is local."

I'm still waiting for the far-left in the Democratic party to understand this.

[Sam Spade]

Cuellar will top 50% once the rest of the votes are counted with plenty to spare.  I have heard that early voting in Webb County was about half what regular voting was and with those margins...

So, what record does this give the Daily Kos forces now, 0 and what exactly... 

[Sam Spade]

Cuellar will top 50% once the rest of the votes are counted with plenty to spare.  I have heard that early voting in Webb County was about half what regular voting was and with those margins...

So, what record does this give the Daily Kos forces now, 0 and what exactly... 

Hey, they endorsed Obama who did a 40+ point pickup. DailyKos was talking about the obscure State Senator with a funny sounding name long before anyone knew who he was. That Ryan guy hired someone to stalk him.

I'm not talking about endorsements.  You know what I'm talking about. 

Obama has a good future, I certainly agree. 

Of course, it would have been such a large margin if it weren't for Alan Keyes, but that's really not to the point either.

Anyway, look forward to November or if the new map gets overturned at the Supremes, we'll get to do this again.

Which is what I've been meaning to ask you.  If the re-gerrymandered map is overturned and all and we have to redo primaries, here's what will probably change:

Bonilla v. Cuellar II.
Dems gain back two seats probably from the five they lost, with Lampson running back to Beaumont to reclaim his CD and Martin Frost reclaiming his CD as well.
Chet Edwards: unchanged situation, still a tough win for him.
Ciro Rodriguez gets his old CD back.
Lloyd Doggett has a much, much tougher race.

Bottom line:  Dems gain +2 to +3 probably, depending on environment, but...

Tom DeLay gets reelected fairly easily.

Or the present situation:

Tom DeLay on the ropes: total toss-up and
Chet Edwards: still a tough situation, probably tougher in the new CD.

Dems +1 to Dems -1, roughly, depending on environment.

I think I know which you would choose, just curious actually.