Texas 2022 megathread

[_.]

-FEB 19 UPDATE-

Party with the lead in Early Voting for Primaries by county as of February 20

Image Link

751,813 Texans have voted so far, 4.38% of registered Texan voters.

290,804 (38.68%) voted in the Democratic Primary
461,009 (61.32%) voted in the Republican Primary


County Flips

To Democrats: Jefferson

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Beto is only 7 pts down with 9 mnths left HEGAR wasn't within single digits this early we can win this race, Biden Approvals will gonup

Beto and Crist arent joke candidate like Gillium and Valdez and HEGAR and only lost to Cruz by 2 and he wasn't a Natl figure yet

Let's stop pretending that there isn't Voting Suppression.

[lfromnj]

https://www.chron.com/politics/article/Texas-railroad-commissioner-Sarah-Stogner-video-16927525.php

lmao
https://twitter.com/Sarah4RRC/status/1493041677266829315
Semi NSFW for the twitter link so no embed.

[BoiseBoy]

https://www.chron.com/politics/article/Texas-railroad-commissioner-Sarah-Stogner-video-16927525.php

lmao
https://twitter.com/Sarah4RRC/status/1493041677266829315
Semi NSFW for the twitter link so no embed.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://www.chron.com/politics/article/Texas-railroad-commissioner-Sarah-Stogner-video-16927525.php

lmao
https://twitter.com/Sarah4RRC/status/1493041677266829315
Semi NSFW for the twitter link so no embed.

LOL
good call on not embedding.

[Real Texan Politics]

https://www.chron.com/politics/article/Texas-railroad-commissioner-Sarah-Stogner-video-16927525.php

lmao
https://twitter.com/Sarah4RRC/status/1493041677266829315
Semi NSFW for the twitter link so no embed.

I don't even think I've heard of her until today. Haven't seen the tweet (don't even want to), but cringe probably can't even do it justice. Honestly that might be disqualification right there.

Oh well, already voted for Wayne Christian anyways.

[ProgressiveModerate]

If Dems can't pull ahead in Harris County early vote soon that should be a big warning sign for them.

Not like TX will be particularly competitive in 2022 nor does it have many competitive House districts, but if Rs can still outright win Harris County that suggests a lot of the gains they've made this past decade are not certain to hold as strongly as many here have projected.

[MargieCat]

If Dems can't pull ahead in Harris County early vote soon that should be a big warning sign for them.

Not like TX will be particularly competitive in 2022 nor does it have many competitive House districts, but if Rs can still outright win Harris County that suggests a lot of the gains they've made this past decade are not certain to hold as strongly as many here have projected.

There are about 32k mail ballots outstanding that have not been returned and republicans have a lead of about 6k.

I expect chunk of the mail ballots to arrive over the next couple of days and they will skew democratic.

[ProgressiveModerate]

If Dems can't pull ahead in Harris County early vote soon that should be a big warning sign for them.

Not like TX will be particularly competitive in 2022 nor does it have many competitive House districts, but if Rs can still outright win Harris County that suggests a lot of the gains they've made this past decade are not certain to hold as strongly as many here have projected.

There are about 32k mail ballots outstanding that have not been returned and republicans have a lead of about 6k.

I expect chunk of the mail ballots to arrive over the next couple of days and they will skew democratic.

What I suspect is a lot of the highest propensity voters in Houston, which are extremely R, were the ones who had their ballots immediately ready to be returned. Houston's Dem coalition is a notoriously very iffy turnout group relative to Texas's other metros, which is a large part of the reason Harris County has remained so close despite Houston at face value being a huge and diverse city.

[Real Texan Politics]

If Dems can't pull ahead in Harris County early vote soon that should be a big warning sign for them.

Not like TX will be particularly competitive in 2022 nor does it have many competitive House districts, but if Rs can still outright win Harris County that suggests a lot of the gains they've made this past decade are not certain to hold as strongly as many here have projected.

There are about 32k mail ballots outstanding that have not been returned and republicans have a lead of about 6k.

I expect chunk of the mail ballots to arrive over the next couple of days and they will skew democratic.

What I suspect is a lot of the highest propensity voters in Houston, which are extremely R, were the ones who had their ballots immediately ready to be returned. Houston's Dem coalition is a notoriously very iffy turnout group relative to Texas's other metros, which is a large part of the reason Harris County has remained so close despite Houston at face value being a huge and diverse city.

Maybe that could spell trouble for Lina Hidalgo??

[Real Texan Politics]

Looks like we got a new big story. Prepare for this to be quite a big issue on the campaign trail in the coming days, weeks, possibly even months.
https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1496474347350933506?s=20&t=T3YJCSf...
Could this have an effect on Abbott and Beto's poll numbers?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Houston Chronicle is breaking what also could be a big news story - that someone seems to have testified before the state legislature under oath saying that the Governor ordered him to demand maximum prices for power during the storm.
Though I don't have any baseline expectations here, this is probably another story to watch.

[Real Texan Politics]

More info on the trans kids stuff I just posted about
https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1496511215719399431?s=20&t=Nzb44DeU...

The Houston Chronicle is breaking what also could be a big news story - that someone seems to have testified before the state legislature under oath saying that the Governor ordered him to demand maximum prices for power during the storm.
Though I don't have any baseline expectations here, this is probably another story to watch.

That could definitely have an effect on Abbott as well.

Speaking of which, here's the Houston Chronicle article
https://twitter.com/HoustonChron/status/1496539928863428609?s=20&t=T3YJCSfO1...

[_.]

-FEB 20 UPDATE-

Party with the lead in Early Voting for Primaries by county as of February 22

Image Link

976,717 Texans have voted so far, 5.68% of registered Texan voters.

290,804 (38.18%) voted in the Democratic Primary
461,009 (61.82%) voted in the Republican Primary


County Flips

To Republicans: Jefferson
To Democrats: Presidio

[LobsterDuck]

What will the Attorney General matchup be?

[Real Texan Politics]

What will the Attorney General matchup be?

Hard to tell right now, as it seems both primaries will go to runoffs. Republican runoff between Ken Paxton and George P. Bush, and democrat runoff between Rochelle Garza (former ACLU attorney) and Joe Jaworski (former mayor of Galveston). However Paxton and Garza have been leading in their respective polls lately, so if I had to guess right now, I think the head to head matchup will be Ken Paxton (R) vs Rochelle Garza (D), and I would rate it as likely R (closer to lean). Despite the scandals, I think the environment is too R favorable for him to go down, though it’ll still be the most competitive of the big 3 statewide races.

[ElectionsGuy]

I did a quick spreadsheet comparing 2018 and 2022 early voting data for the 15 biggest counties.



 - In sum, Dems won the 2018 early vote in these counties by 5 points. We are 3 days away from that day and R's are so far winning them by almost an identical margin.

 - So far, this is 65% of the vote from 2018. 73% of the Republican vote and 59% of the Democratic vote.

 - You'll notice that despite turnout thus far not exceeding 2018, it has for Republican primaries in Cameron and Hidalgo counties.

- In the rest of the state (239 other counties), R's are winning 297K to 94K, more than a 3:1 margin.

[Calthrina950]

I did a quick spreadsheet comparing 2018 and 2022 early voting data for the 15 biggest counties.



 - In sum, Dems won the 2018 early vote in these counties by 5 points. We are 3 days away from that day and R's are so far winning them by almost an identical margin.

 - So far, this is 65% of the vote from 2018. 73% of the Republican vote and 59% of the Democratic vote.

 - You'll notice that despite turnout thus far not exceeding 2018, it has for Republican primaries in Cameron and Hidalgo counties.

- In the rest of the state (239 other counties), R's are winning 297K to 94K, more than a 3:1 margin.

What this indicates is that Republicans are "fired up" and more enthusiastic to vote this year than Democrats, and are voting at higher rates than Democrats. If I'm not mistaken, this was seen in New Jersey and in Virginia. This would be another sign of the impending Republican wave this year.

[patzer]

More info on the trans kids stuff I just posted about

I feel like this could work against him electorally like Pat McCrory's stuff did.

[ElectionsGuy]

I did a quick spreadsheet comparing 2018 and 2022 early voting data for the 15 biggest counties.



 - In sum, Dems won the 2018 early vote in these counties by 5 points. We are 3 days away from that day and R's are so far winning them by almost an identical margin.

 - So far, this is 65% of the vote from 2018. 73% of the Republican vote and 59% of the Democratic vote.

 - You'll notice that despite turnout thus far not exceeding 2018, it has for Republican primaries in Cameron and Hidalgo counties.

- In the rest of the state (239 other counties), R's are winning 297K to 94K, more than a 3:1 margin.

What this indicates is that Republicans are "fired up" and more enthusiastic to vote this year than Democrats, and are voting at higher rates than Democrats. If I'm not mistaken, this was seen in New Jersey and in Virginia. This would be another sign of the impending Republican wave this year.

So far, I'm actually not sure what to make of it. Not good for Democrats, but in comparison to 2018 it may actually be lower turnout than I'd have expected. And some counties don't follow the overall pattern, which may indicate a lower amount of locations or a delay in reporting. If we don't see these numbers increase significantly by the end of the week, it may be concerning for both parties. Until then, lots of questions are unanswered. 

[Real Texan Politics]

More info on the trans kids stuff I just posted about

I feel like this could work against him electorally like Pat McCrory's stuff did.

McCrory may have been more due to economic consequences. No doubt this could result in some economic consequences, and will definitely further energize democratic voters (especially those VERY passionate about LGBT issues), but this is still a Biden midterm (one that'll definitely be worse for him following the current Russian invasion of Ukraine) so it can really only work against Abbott so much.

Although I do wonder if Huffines could overperform Abbott just based off the name alone, probably benefits Huffines not having his name attached to major controversies like the power grid failure and abortion and trans kids bills.

So far, I'm actually not sure what to make of it. Not good for Democrats, but in comparison to 2018 it may actually be lower turnout than I'd have expected. And some counties don't follow the overall pattern, which may indicate a lower amount of locations or a delay in reporting. If we don't see these numbers increase significantly by the end of the week, it may be concerning for both parties. Until then, lots of questions are unanswered.  

I don't know how competitive the democrat gubernatorial primary was in 2018, but this one is certainly much MUCH less competitive, in that Beto is practically running unopposed, with other dem candidates having almost zero name recognition. That could be a factor right there. I imagine dems will be much more energized by Beto when voting in the general than in the primary, which he's pretty much guaranteed to win by at least a 95% or so margin, and he'll probably win every county in the primary (except for those that get no dem votes at all).

[ProgressiveModerate]

Abbott will almost certainly win but I have a feeling he won’t dramatically overperform other Rs like he did in 2018, infact, I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up with a simillar margin, just with the cities a bit bluer and RGV redder

[wbrocks67]

Abbott has really done pretty much everything he could in the last few years to make himself vulnerable. It's a red year so he won't be, but he's lucky b/c he thinks this is still an R+20 state or something and it's not.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Abbott has really done pretty much everything he could in the last few years to make himself vulnerable. It's a red year so he won't be, but he's lucky b/c he thinks this is still an R+20 state or something and it's not.

Users need to stop saying red yr and say a 303 map yr just like we had in 2020 Evers, Shapiro and Whitmer aren't losing
Lol it's not a red year D's in 303 states are outpolling Biden but in a 303 map TX and FL are red and AZ, NM, NV and CO are blue it's VBM and D voters can over one Biden 44 Approvals in VBM election not same day

It was only red yr in 2010 it was 11 percent unemployment and in 2014 we weren't in a Pandemic Obamacare was deeply unpopular

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Abbott should thank his lucky stars Trump wasn't re-elected. He's doing everything wrong