First of all, none of this would be possible without lots of hard work from lots of people. PLEASE click on the links and donate time or money, if you are able. The national party has written us off down here for ages, so what these people have done is remarkable. My hat is off to them.
Battleground Texas
Texas Democratic Party
Hillary for Texas
Drive for Democracy (to drive voters to the polls)
League of Women Voters — TX (GOTV and also driving to the polls)
ALL the local Democratic organizations — there are too many to count, or include all of them here. We also have some amazing Kossacks involved: LibbyShaw, txjackalope (who gave me the original idea and push for this series — it wouldn’t be here without you!), txdoubledd (you have added fantastic links), MargaretPOA, ChrisLove and the Houston Kossacks who kept me going, Ken in TX and his fantastic work out in Travis County, tiredntexas for her hard work in Harris County, oldhippiedude, oceanview for the constant (needed) reminders to make the donation and volunteer links more visible (I hope I got it right) and everyone else out there who’s helped me build these diaries, links and worked to make this happen. FaithChatham has a wonderful series on congressional races that could be competitive — with donation links, if you have some spare change to share.
If you’re a TX voter, VOTE! Here is a FAQ list for you...early voting ENDS on Friday, 4 Nov. Vote early! Even voting early, some counties are seeing lines up to an hour or two, depending on when you go. Then, if you have time take others to the polls. Voting and enthusiasm are contagious. There are free rides in Austin, courtesy of League of Women Voters, plus the Metro is doing free rides. The YMCA may offer free childcare on election day.
Now, on to data, analysis and caveats. The Texas Secretary of State office has excellent record-keeping...though the numbers are updated somewhere between 9 and 2.
|
2008 |
2012 |
2016 |
Day 8, top 15 counties by population
Harris (Houston) |
62,509 |
66,359 |
69,323 |
Dallas |
40,706 |
34,866 |
33,341 |
Tarrant (Ft Worth) |
39,008 |
34,135 |
38,180 |
Bexar (San Antonio) |
33,668 |
29,072 |
33,786 |
Travis (Austin) |
21,387 |
18,496 |
24,265 |
Collin (DFW) |
18,126 |
17,899 |
19,724 |
Denton |
14,998 |
14,279 |
18,919 |
El Paso |
8,194 |
7,343 |
9,287 |
Ft Bend (SW Houston) |
12,609 |
12,689 |
14,589 |
Hidalgo (Rio Grande) |
6,453 |
7,042 |
7,627 |
Montgomery (N Houston) |
8,467 |
9,902 |
11,991 |
Williamson (Round Rock) |
7,736 |
7,822 |
10,053 |
Galveston |
5,646 |
6,553 |
6,395 |
Nueces |
5,669 |
4,775 |
5,636 |
Cameron (Rio Grande) |
3,042 |
3,599 |
4,403 |
Total EV Day 6 |
288,218 |
274,831 |
307,519 |
Cumulative EV |
1,902,150 |
1,975,284 |
2,709,196 |
Total Votes (ev & mail in) |
2,069,331 |
2,161,513 |
2,982,616 |
Vote % of Registered Voters |
24.46% |
24.98% |
30.56% |
*Once again, still waiting on the rest of the numbers. However, I have a number of meetings today, and wanted to get this out! This is ONLY 8 of the 15 counties: if the other 7 come in at roughly their 2012 numbers, that adds about 70K to the total early votes: and more will come in by mail today as well. My estimate is 80-85K more votes are out there, just not reported yet.
**Update at 8:53: added Collin County. I still think we’ve got about 60K votes that will be added, between early voting and mail-in received over the weekend.
**Update at 11:10: added Denton, El Paso and Ft Bend counties. Still waiting on SoS update, but things are looking good! Estimate is now at 30K votes outstanding for Monday, since these preliminary numbers don’t include mail-in.
**Update at 1:55: the SoS information was updated on the website, so all numbers have been added/corrected to the SoS totals.
So, it looks like early voting is STILL doing better than in previous years, but the crazy high turnouts we saw last week have slowed down. There was a lot of speculation that part of the higher turnout was due, not to enthusiasm, but longer polling hours: it’s beginning to look like that’s the case. On the other hand, we’re still 1 million votes better than in 2008 or 2012, which is NOTHING to sneeze at — and also seeing NO drop in turnout (the ‘regular’ hours began on Saturday, right when we started seeing turnout go to high, but more expected, levels). At this point, we’re still running about 8% better than previous years, so the estimates by some county officials that early voting turnout will come out to half the registered voters is still quite reasonable.
*Note: Dallas County is the only one that has now shown 3 days of lower turnout than previous years. However, there have been 331,181 early votes cast in Dallas County: it’s still an impressive 29% better than 2012’s total of 256,828 votes by day 8.
Is higher turnout automatically good for Team Blue? Yes and no. In Texas, most of the less likely voters are traditionally Dem constituencies: latinos, African Americans, youth. In 2012, about 8M Texans voted (3.4M of those votes were what I’m tracking here: early voting and by mail votes — so 42% of ALL votes cast in 2012). We had roughly 13M voters in 2012: this year, we’ve got just over 15M — 800K of those registered AFTER the May primaries this year.
“My sense is that Trump advanced things for the Democrats about four to six years,” said Richard Murray, a University of Houston politics professor and pollster. “We’ve seen a surge in overall registration growth and now we’re seeing quite a dramatic jump in early voting. I’ll be watching to see if the state tops 9 million in voting or even reaches 10 million.”
It looks promising, though. El Paso Times did an exit poll early last week: at the time, about ¼ of voters were first-time voters. In addition, women have outpaced men in Harris County: the gap, 54% female in 2012, has grown to 56% female this year. The story is behind a paywall, but I’m not sure if there’s a free article limit. Washington Post shows that, while all counties have seen an increase in voting, the more Democratic counties have, by and large, seen larger increases: 65% to 44%. That’s NOTHING to sneeze at. We still have work to do: Romney won the state by 1.2M votes. How many crossover votes there are, and how much of the increase in ‘red’ counties is from Dem constituencies finally showing up, we simply don’t know. While it’s not TX specific, NYT has a story showing that Latinos are voting at significantly increased rates across all states they have data for. Beyond just that, there was a push starting yesterday (Monday) to get Latinos to the polls for Dia de Muertos in TX, FL and NV — which is today, 1 Nov. We’ll see what comes of that in tomorrow’s wrap-up! The poll from NALEO (also referenced in the diary) is saying ½ Latinos will vote early: which is higher than usual Latino voter participation.
More than that, if the Latino vote turns TX blue — or even into a true battleground — we’ll likely see two different things. First, Gov Abbott and the GOP legislature will likely push more voter suppression, such as limiting early voting. Second, the sleeping giant of Latino citizens will both see their voices matter...and the GOP trying to make them be silent again. We MUST put in the resources necessary to sustain this enthusiasm through 2018 and 2020...and show these voters their votes matter, and make a difference at the state level as well as presidential.
One final note: there was an arrest at a polling location about 25 miles north of Austin — for electioneering. A man refused to cover up his pro-Trump shirt when asked to do so. While there have been (and rightly so!) complaints in multiple counties about incorrect signs and pollsters refusing to offer an ID affidavit, this is a sign that some things are going right.