Texas Megathread

[jimrtex]

Unrelated from the recent discussions, but does anyone have a reason why Jefferson County (SE Texas - Beaumont) is still a Democratic-leaning county? Demographic-wise, it seems it should favor Republicans, although not overwhelmingly so. Could it be an anomaly left over from the heavily Democratic South days?

Beaumont and Port Arthur are heavily unionized, with refineries, port and other facilities.  They have also been losing population for decades, which is quite atypical for a city in Texas.  They are on the border with Louisiana, which has voted Democratic until quite recently, and which was true of all East Texas until quite recently.  It also has a large concentrated black population.  At the time of the 2002 redistricting, there was one Republican House member from East Texas.  Currently, one remains, which is a VRA district in Beaumont-Port Arthur.  Moreover, the Democrats only have 4 nominees in around 20 House districts.

In other parts of East Texas, it has not been uncommon for all the local government officials to become Republicans.  Rather than running in the Democratic primary, and token Republican opposition, they run in the Republican primary, with token Democratic opposition.  Over time, this works up ballot, as there are no county commissioners, etc. to run for the legislature.  In 2011 and 2012, two of the remaining House members switched parties.   One of them Allan Ritter did so between being elected as a Democrat in 2010, and being sworn in in 2011.  The other, Chuck Hopson switched parties in 2009, was the Republican nominee in 2010, but was defeated in the Republican primary in 2012 (which also included a change to his district).

Because of Beaumont and Port Arthur, Jefferson County does have a core Democratic Party, instead of some non-partisans who could run Democratic primaries and then switch to Republican primaries as happened in smaller counties.

In 1996, when Steve Stockman lost to Nick Lampson, it was because of Jefferson County.  The 1996 congressional election was conducted as a special election concurrent with the November general election, because the Supreme Court redistricting ruling had come down after the primaries.  Rather than wait until 1998, the primaries were tossed and special elections were ordered.

In Texas, special elections are all-comers, without regard to party, but with a majority required.  On election day in November, Stockman had a 46% plurality.  The runoff was in December.  While the district was one of many in the Houston area and therefore was buried beneath news of parking lots full of Christmas shoppers, in Beaumont it was the only district and actually got news coverage plus the union GOTV effort.   Since then, the Republicans have included Jefferson County in senate and congressional districts dominated by Houston suburbs.

[jimrtex]

Unrelated from the recent discussions, but does anyone have a reason why Jefferson County (SE Texas - Beaumont) is still a battleground county? Demographic-wise, it seems it should favor Republicans, although not overwhelmingly so. Could it be an anomaly left over from the heavily Democratic South days?

IIRC it has a very significant black population and a large university.

I understand what you and Flo are saying, although Waller County, just NW of Harris, is home to the historically black Prairie View A&M, and has roughly similar demographics to Jefferson (if not more D leaning), yet voted ~58-41 for Romney vs. 50.3-48.7 for Obama in Jefferson County.   

Checking Google there have been significant controversies over whether Prairie View A&M students can vote in Waller County; I can't find something similar for Lamar University, so it's likely the university has a more outsized impact. Jefferson also has over 5x the population of Waller, so there's that. More urban liberals.

The students tend to only vote in presidential elections.  Prairie View A&M is located in the middle of nowhere, whereas Lamar is in Beaumont.  Most of the students are local to the Golden Triangle.  If they lived further north, they'd go to SFA or Sam Houston, further west, UofH, or further east to Louiisiana-Lafayette.  Waller is also on the edge of the Houston metro area in the Waller (town) and Katy areas.

[jimrtex]

There is a longstanding controversy between Waller County and Prairie View regarding the university students' voting rights. The District Attorney has sued to prevent students from voting at their school address; election officials "accidentally" misplaced about a thousand students' registration cards, just in time to keep them from voting in that year's general; polling locations are as far out of the way as possible; student candidates for local offices routinely get ignored in the voter guides, etc

The District Attorney wrote a letter to the county election administrators regarding the student.  She told him that she was going to follow the standards from the SOS.  The governor, attorney general, and SOS told the DA he was wrong; the county commissioners who were being sued over the issue, held a closed door meeting with the DA; and he grudgingly offered an apology to settle the lawsuit.

The polling location was at the student center until a renovation, when it was moved to a county community center on the edge of the campus area, and quite near the post office.  Part of the controversy with regard to student voting is that there is no on-campus postal service, and so many students give a mail address outside the county, at the post office, or use the PO Box for the campus mail service.  Nobody thought to move it back until someone noticed they were a victim.

The civil rights organization True The Vote (TTV) prepared a report that showed that the student center would be a better location, since it was ADA compliant, had 10 times the parking (the university administration has agreed to waive the $2 poll tax parking fee during elections.  There would be more space, more voter privacy, and better control since voting would occur in a ballroom on a 2nd floor area that was not in general use on most days.  TTV also pointed out that because of the Shelby County decision, that the county could simply move the polling place and not seek the approval of Washington bureaucrats.

At the recent primary runoff election, voting was consolidated at the campus site for two precincts, the mainly on-campus 309, and 310 in the town of Prairie View (the campus is in the city limits, but there is a separate residential area),

Waller ISD, which is based in the town of Waller, which is on the Harris County/Waller Count line) and not the county school district, apparently published a voters guide one time.  One of the opponents of the students had served on the school board for a dozen years and was a professor at Prairie View.  One of the student-candidates said that she hated Waller and Texas, and couldn't wait to graduate so that she could move back to St. Louis (Missouri).  In its endorsement, the Waller newspaper noted that the two student candidates had not attended a candidate forum.  They lost 205-1098 and 160-1151.

[windjammer]

Texas Gubernational now likely rep for Cook.

[Maxwell]

Texas Gubernational now likely rep for Cook.

Makes sense. Abbott is a stronger candidate than Davis, and the dems have to do more than have a good candidate to win Texas (see: Bill White in 2010)

[TX Conservative Dem]

National Democrats should just focus spending $$$$$ on Florida, Pennsylvania and Maine.

[Miles]

Both Patrick (blue) and Paxton (red) won 65/35-ish but their coalitions were a bit different:

[Miles]

Since there's no Ag Commissioner category to generate maps for on this site, I made one on my own. Hogan (red) beat Friedman (blue) by about 8% :

[Flake]

Since there's no Ag Commissioner category to generate maps for on this site, I made one on my own. Hogan (red) beat Friedman (blue) by about 8% :

Actually Dave just added Ag commish to the list of races

[badgate]

I don't know if this has been posted, but anyone who cares about Democratic candidates with potential future in Texas politics should read this Texas Monthly interview with our nominee for Comptroller, Mike Collier.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/it-wont-be-political?fullpage=1

[TX Conservative Dem]

I've seen the TX Monthly article on Collier: very impressive, but he needs to run more TV Ads during the summer in order to introduce himself statewide.

[TX Conservative Dem]

Houston Chronicle and Texas Monthly think after Perry leaves the Texas Governor's Mansion on January 20, 2015, that he plans on moving to California.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/

[badgate]

I went to the Texas Dem Convention yesterday, it was a freakin' blast. Davis and Van De Putte blew the roof off the place. Some highlights I'd like to share:


Trey Martinez Fischer, a state Rep., is clearly getting ready to 1) run for VDP's state senate seat or 2) run state-wide. He hosted the after-party last night, as well as giving one of the longer and more energetic speeches that was accompanied by his staff passing out "TMF" placards. For the after party, we had to "RSVP" by writing our name, number, and email: clear indication he is trying to widen his volunteer and donor base. There is also this sign that was at his booth and also outside the after party:



Here is the TMF placard:


(Sorry...too lazy to rotate the image)

TMF also delivered my favorite line of the night, explaining that in spanish GOP stands for Gringos y Otres Pendejos

Joaquin Castro had another great line: "I wish politics were like sports. I wish we could trade Ted Cruz to Massachusetts for Elizabeth Warren."

What is really interesting is to see the excitement for this year, but also the jockeying for four years from now. Castro, Fischer, Annise Parker all spoke end energized the crowd. We truly are a party on the rise, despite this forum's pervading narrative to the contrary.


Steve Brown, our Railroad Commis. candidate, was very nervous (I think this was his first ever speech of this size), but handled himself well. I think he has a great future and he's obviously very articulate and knowledgeable of the challenges facing the Railroad Commis. What especially impresses me is his focus on Parker County, which has had a slew of earthquakes and other problems, some of which have been attributed to tracking, and the commission has been absolutely abysmal in responding to the community. Now, Parker co. is VERY Republican. (as he said this, you could hear the ten Democrats from Parker in the crowd cheering their butts off) But the fact that he's willing to go there and talk about his proposed Office of Public Advocacy for the commission shows a lot of courage and smarts.

I missed today's speeches, which bums me out because I wanted to see Mike Collier and Sam Houston speak in person. However other than the speeches the only other things going on today cost extra money.

But yesterday was a great great day.

Over everything else, you all HAVE to watch this video Leticia Van De Putte's campaign played before her speech last night. http://youtu.be/vOU6xfpvo0A

[Indy Texas]

Ah, the Texas Democratic Party. Where Trey Fischer magically becomes Trey Martínez Fischer and becomes a state representative. Leticia Van de Putte is kicking herself for taking her Dutch husband's name when she got married. It doesn't help that 'Putte' sounds kind of like 'puta' when you say it with a Spanish accent.

[badgate]

Nothing could kill my buzz but that was a nice try!

[Indy Texas]

Nothing could kill my buzz but that was a nice try!

How was TexDemCon 2014? Was there sufficient liquor? Weird hats? Do the little old ladies who vote Democratic think the little old ladies who wear American flag shirts and still ask for the "real" birth certificate are just suffering the lingering aftereffects of a really bad stroke?

[jimrtex]

TMF also delivered my favorite line of the night, explaining that in spanish GOP stands for Gringos y Otres Pendejos

I don't think Ferdinand Frank Fischer III speaks Spanish. 

[Indy Texas]

TMF also delivered my favorite line of the night, explaining that in spanish GOP stands for Gringos y Otres Pendejos

I don't think Ferdinand Frank Fischer III speaks Spanish. 

He's an Anglo sleeper agent trying to pass himself off as a brown person. ¡Tan escandaloso!

[Matty]

Are the polls getting closer here, or are people already assuming this will be a cakewalk for Abbot?

[Miles]

^ Should be a pretty routine win for a Republican in TX. The last credible pollster here was PPP and Abbott was up 51-37.

[Indy Texas]

I don't doubt Greg Abbott will be the next governor. I'd rather that not be the case; however, Wendy Davis has run a really mediocre campaign and honestly I didn't think she was that great of a candidate to begin with.

I wish the TDP would put more money and attention into the downballot races, which honestly seem more winnable at this point. LiteGuv and Comptroller would be the two I'd focus most heavily on.

[Miles]

Random question for Texas posters: Any of ya'll heard of this woman JoAnn Fleming? She's from Tyler and is one of the state tea party leaders.

She got some YouTube videos up; she did a breakdown of the legislative races. She criticizes most of the Republicans from the right, so its a different perspective.

[badgate]

Nothing could kill my buzz but that was a nice try!

How was TexDemCon 2014? Was there sufficient liquor? Weird hats? Do the little old ladies who vote Democratic think the little old ladies who wear American flag shirts and still ask for the "real" birth certificate are just suffering the lingering aftereffects of a really bad stroke?

It was great. Granted, it's my first state convention, but I could tell it was the best one in a while. I can't ever imagine Bill White or Chris Bell or even Tony Sanchez garnering the excitement you could feel in the hall last night when VDP and Davis spoke.

I don't drink, but there was alcohol at the after parties IIRC.

Only one weird hat that I saw, a sombrero with a plush donkey  and an american flag on top. I complimented her on it.

There was one cool guy who collects a sh**t ton of buttons and posters. He had this perfect JFK poster going for $150. I bought the Chisholm button in my sig from him.

My grandmother actually did have aftereffects from a stroke, so I'm highly offended.

[RogueBeaver]

NYT on Davis. Question for Texans: will the margin be closer to '10 or '02?

[Indy Texas]

NYT on Davis. Question for Texans: will the margin be closer to '10 or '02?

2010.

2002 was a very good GOP year, Tony Sanchez became a very tainted candidate, and the demographics of 2002 Texas are not like the demographics of 2014 Texas.