Harris County, TX - Presidential results precinct map link

[Indy Texas]

I didn't realize that Houston's downtown voted GOP. Why is that? Also what is the area west of Rice/Downtown like? It seems quite Republican, and I know it's Houston, but what makes this urban area Republican?

Actually a broad explanation of the trends would be great!

The little red dot in the heart of downtown is the "One Percent" lofts and highrises.

The red cluster from Beltway 8 to the West Loop, Bunker Hill Village and Bellaire is the Country Club Republicans.

The blue area where Baytown is in the eastern part of the county is a working class Hispanic neighborhood. A lot of those people work at the chemical plants there.

Deer Park is a more middle-class Hispanic neighborhood. A lot of Protestants. That explains the Republican wins there.

La Porte is working-class, conservative whites and a growing Hispanic population.

Atascocita in the northeast is a middle class suburb with lots of golf courses.

Tomball and Cypress are fundie exurbs with lots of minivan-driving True Believers.

[Indy Texas]

Fixed. Deer Park, TX is around 85% white.

You're right. I was confusing Deer Park with Galena Park.

[Indy Texas]

I didn't realize that Houston's downtown voted GOP. Why is that? Also what is the area west of Rice/Downtown like? It seems quite Republican, and I know it's Houston, but what makes this urban area Republican?

Actually a broad explanation of the trends would be great!

Tomball and Cypress are fundie exurbs with lots of minivan-driving True Believers.

Not all of us out in the Tomball area are fundies, and although minivans outnumber hybrids, there are many more pickups than either.

There is an extremely high proportion of Anglos compared to much of Harris County, and although it doesn't appear to be that upper middle-class compared to many neighborhoods a short distance down the SH-249 or SH-290, you have a large number of middle-class younger married couples with kids wanting to be in one or another of the higher performing school districts, willing to pay a bit more for their housing.

The "White Flight havens" on Houston's periphery have always creeped me out. I tend to think if you want to have 90%+ of your neighbors be non-Hispanic whites, you need to find somewhere other than Houston to live (Utah or Minnesota, perhaps). I'm occasionally in Cypress visiting family friends who are a Santorum-Palin GOP's wet dream: wife never attended college, they go to an evangelical church twice a week, husband collects bumper stickers that are the Right's equivalent of snark ("Somewhere in Kenya, a village is missing its idiot"). And the cookie cutter houses around the cul de sac are full of cookie cutter neighbors; an F-150 and an Expedition in every driveway (preferably with a Browning deer or Semper Fi sticker) and Fox News on every plasma TV.

[Indy Texas]

The "White Flight havens" on Houston's periphery have always creeped me out. I tend to think if you want to have 90%+ of your neighbors be non-Hispanic whites, you need to find somewhere other than Houston to live (Utah or Minnesota, perhaps). I'm occasionally in Cypress visiting family friends who are a Santorum-Palin GOP's wet dream: wife never attended college, they go to an evangelical church twice a week, husband collects bumper stickers that are the Right's equivalent of snark ("Somewhere in Kenya, a village is missing its idiot"). And the cookie cutter houses around the cul de sac are full of cookie cutter neighbors; an F-150 and an Expedition in every driveway (preferably with a Browning deer or Semper Fi sticker) and Fox News on every plasma TV.

what's the SES of the area like? The way you're describing them, I'm surprised they can afford to live in that area.

Houston-area real estate is dirt cheap. It's a combination of flat land that doesn't have to be graded; no zoning laws restricting housing supply; cheap immigrant labor; and ample real estate as the small farms and ranches that used to occupy most of the outlying areas have been sold by their heirs. You can get a 3-bedroom/2.5-bath house in a fairly decent neighborhood for less than $150K in these parts. You could argue that this contributes to the conservative proclivities of the inhabitants. A working-class family that would be renting in other parts of the country can own their own home and have it paid off within a fairly reasonable time frame, and they view themselves more as "taxpayers" and "stakeholders" in the middle- and upper-class sense.

[Indy Texas]

also one of my questions is this: if you live in Tomball or Cyfair and you are sort of a Mark Kirk republican, what party do you run as if you want to run for office (congress or state lege)

You don't. A moderate Republican couldn't get elected in this area before 2010, let alone in the current Republican primary climate. This is the part of Harris County that keeps sending Debbie Riddle - famous for her illegal immigrant and terror baby conspiracy rants on CNN alongside Louie Gohmert - to the State House. She got primaried last year by a man who thought she wasn't conservative enough.

[Indy Texas]

also one of my questions is this: if you live in Tomball or Cyfair and you are sort of a Mark Kirk republican, what party do you run as if you want to run for office (congress or state lege)

You don't. A moderate Republican couldn't get elected in this area before 2010, let alone in the current Republican primary climate. This is the part of Harris County that keeps sending Debbie Riddle - famous for her illegal immigrant and terror baby conspiracy rants on CNN alongside Louie Gohmert - to the State House. She got primaried last year by a man who thought she wasn't conservative enough.

so do you run as a dem instead?

You don't run. Period. Most of the state/local races in that area have Republicans running unopposed. Occasionally you have a token Democratic candidate, but it's usually either a liberal who has no chance of winning or an Old White Trial Lawyer type who also has no chance of winning.

I would really like to see the Texas Democrats find more Kathleen Sebelius types who can appeal to suburban Republicans - probably not many in the area we're discussing but more in the inner suburbs where the KBH-type Republicans are.