Harris County, Texas
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excelsus
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« on: February 23, 2014, 05:37:21 PM »

Why is Harris County, TX so heavily Republican? Okay, it voted twice for Obama, but only by a tiny margin, which is pretty unusual for such a huge county, and it voted for Perry twice, and it even voted for Cruz. What makes this county so conservative?
Is Harris County the most populous Republican-leaning county nationwide?
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Vega
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« Reply #1 on: February 23, 2014, 05:52:48 PM »

It seems to be a swing county.

There are alot of Democrats from the Texas House of Representatives and Senate, from Harris County.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #2 on: February 23, 2014, 05:56:13 PM »

An easy plurality of the families in Harris County are directly connected to the oil industry.  That's the main reason.  Also, minority turnout lags other parts of the country.  The other dominant industry is healthcare which does lean left on the whole and there is a traditional urban liberal base.  The county is unusually large geographically and includes a lot of areas that would be considered exurbs in Northeastern setting and vote 75% R.  The city of Houston itself is probably closer to 60/40 D than 50/50.  Imagine if everything within 40 miles of Atlanta were one county.  It's a lot like that.
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CatoMinor
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« Reply #3 on: February 23, 2014, 05:57:05 PM »

Enough and Hispanics and Asians vote R to keep the county about even in presidential years and lean R on the state level.
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old timey villain
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« Reply #4 on: February 23, 2014, 06:00:42 PM »

Harris county has Houston, which is strong D, but it also encompasses most of Houston's suburbs which are very Republican. So when you have a Democratic city with some equally large Republican suburbs you get about an equal number of Rep and Dem votes.

Harris used to lean R though, which I think has changed because the county as a whole has become a lot more diverse. Whites are only 32% of the population, so it's surprising that Republicans do as well as they do there.
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ElectionsGuy
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« Reply #5 on: February 24, 2014, 01:06:28 AM »

Yes, Houston has very conservative suburbs and even exurbs within the county. To give you an idea, here's a screen shot of the county from the 2008 presidential election (by Dave's Redistricting):

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Del Tachi
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« Reply #6 on: February 24, 2014, 01:19:29 AM »

An easy plurality of the families in Harris County are directly connected to the oil industry.  That's the main reason.  Also, minority turnout lags other parts of the country.  The other dominant industry is healthcare which does lean left on the whole and there is a traditional urban liberal base.  The county is unusually large geographically and includes a lot of areas that would be considered exurbs in Northeastern setting and vote 75% R.  The city of Houston itself is probably closer to 60/40 D than 50/50.  Imagine if everything within 40 miles of Atlanta were one county.  It's a lot like that.

That's exactly the comparison that I thought of.

Houston probably isn't that different of an animal politically than Atlanta or Memphis, but Harris County is a whole different animal than Shelby or Fulton/DeKalb County. 
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2014, 11:52:59 PM »

Yes, Houston has very conservative suburbs and even exurbs within the county. To give you an idea, here's a screen shot of the county from the 2008 presidential election (by Dave's Redistricting):



Is the label off center or is Sugar Land actually D+low as a town?
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Indy Texas
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« Reply #8 on: March 03, 2014, 12:58:27 AM »

Yes, Houston has very conservative suburbs and even exurbs within the county. To give you an idea, here's a screen shot of the county from the 2008 presidential election (by Dave's Redistricting):



Is the label off center or is Sugar Land actually D+low as a town?

It wouldn't surprise me if it was. It's not Tom DeLay's lily white exurb anymore. I recall reading somewhere that it's something like 1/3 Anglo, 1/3 Asian/Indian and blacks and Hispanics make up the last 1/3.
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ElectionsGuy
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« Reply #9 on: March 03, 2014, 01:08:23 AM »

Yes, Houston has very conservative suburbs and even exurbs within the county. To give you an idea, here's a screen shot of the county from the 2008 presidential election (by Dave's Redistricting):



Is the label off center or is Sugar Land actually D+low as a town?

I checked it, and yeah, the label is a little off even when I zoomed in. Its a little northeast of where it should be. Sugar Land is generally that batch of orange and pink precincts between Missouri City and New Territory. Its pretty diverse, but still minorities turn out very low.
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scrabblehack
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« Reply #10 on: June 29, 2014, 09:29:09 PM »

Houston probably isn't that different of an animal politically than Atlanta or Memphis, but Harris County is a whole different animal than Shelby or Fulton/DeKalb County. 

It is different.  I'd have to attribute it to the oil industry. 

TX 7 is a much smaller district (land area) than GA 6.  It is the most urban Republican House seat in the nation.
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memphis
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« Reply #11 on: June 29, 2014, 09:48:20 PM »

Houston probably isn't that different of an animal politically than Atlanta or Memphis, but Harris County is a whole different animal than Shelby or Fulton/DeKalb County. 
Care to elaborate on that point? Urban, minority majority Democratic city surrounded by seriously Republican suburbs. Just curious, what is it about Harris that you find so different than Shelby County? Other than Harris being much more populous and having different minorities?
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scrabblehack
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« Reply #12 on: June 30, 2014, 07:05:19 AM »

As I said, TX 7 is about half the size in terms of land area as GA 6 but has approximately the same population  So it's not the size of Harris County compared to Shelby County.   

The difference I can see is the oil industry which is definitely Republican.  I haven't looked at the demographics. 

My first statement was quoting another poster but the quote-quote-quote looked so ugly I deleted it.
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SNJ1985
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« Reply #13 on: June 30, 2014, 07:11:56 PM »

Dallas County isn't that Democratic either, although it is more Democratic than Harris.
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #14 on: June 30, 2014, 07:27:53 PM »
« Edited: June 30, 2014, 08:30:42 PM by traininthedistance »

It is the most urban Republican House seat in the nation.

Smaller than Peter King's district, or Michael Grimm's, or something in the OC?

(EDIT: Grimm's district is definitely way smaller than King's, especially post-redistricting.  Not sure if anything in the OC comes close to Grimm though.)
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Linus Van Pelt
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« Reply #15 on: June 30, 2014, 10:01:15 PM »

It is the most urban Republican House seat in the nation.

Smaller than Peter King's district, or Michael Grimm's, or something in the OC?

(EDIT: Grimm's district is definitely way smaller than King's, especially post-redistricting.  Not sure if anything in the OC comes close to Grimm though.)

The census bureau has a list of CD's by area (link) that's user-unfriendly if your aim is to read it rather than code with it. The first two digits represent the American National Standards Institute code for the state, which basically means its ordinal position in an alphabetical list of the states together with a few territories like American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, etc.

Unless I'm missing something, Grimm's district (36-11) is the smallest GOP district at 65.8 square miles, followed by Rohrabacher's (06-48) at 145.5, with Culbertson's (48-07), the subject of this thread, third at 161.9, and King's (36-02) fourth at 182.0.

How this interacts with "most urban" I'll let others decide.
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ElectionsGuy
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« Reply #16 on: July 14, 2014, 09:08:53 PM »

I split Harris County into four main sections





1: Eastern and inner city Houston, very democratic, predominantly Black and Hispanic.
Obama: 250,889 (78.4%), McCain: 69,006 (21.6%)
2: Western and more suburban Houston. Very diverse, includes the democratic part bordering Fort Bend County and republican and mixed areas to the north.
McCain: 181,386 (51.2%), Obama: 173,050 (48.8%)
3: Western and northern exurbs and suburbs. Very republican, majority white although still large Hispanic population.
McCain: 179,518 (66.3%), Obama: 91,055 (33.7%)
4: Eastern exurbs and suburbs. Very republican as well, Majority white and the rest mostly Latino.
McCain: 141,973 (65.1%), Obama: 75,983 (34.9%)
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Badger
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« Reply #17 on: July 25, 2014, 02:37:17 PM »

Interesting map, E-G. What landmarks/criteria did you use for where in Houston to divide area 1 from area 2?
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ElectionsGuy
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« Reply #18 on: July 26, 2014, 01:30:26 AM »

Interesting map, E-G. What landmarks/criteria did you use for where in Houston to divide area 1 from area 2?

Nothing really besides where the dark blue stops, and also where there starts to be a significant Asian population.
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