I just saw another diary on Texas, and it reminded me to go in and see if those dang Texans ever finished counting the registrations for 2018, lol. Yep. And as expected, they broke a record.
The Dallas Morning News reports final numbers of 15,793,257 registered for the 2018 midterms. This compares to 15.1 million registered in 2016, and 14.0 in 2014. But this is a fast-growing state, and we expect the electorate to grow. A more telling figure might be the percent of the voting age population that is registered. Here’s the historic trend”
Percent of VAP (voting age population) registered
2004: 81.5%
2006: 78.5%
2008: 76.5%
2010: 71.0%
2012: 74.6%
2014: 74.2%
2016: 78.2%
2018: 79.3%
As you can see, not since GW Bush, Texan native, was on the ballot has Texas seen this level of voter registration.
Where are the registrations coming from? Is it good for us?
We needed record high registration to make a play in the key Texas races. We got the overall registration, but are these Dem voters, an undesirable mix, or an even more undesirable wave of GOP voters? Sorry...I’m not going to make a prediction on that.
It’s just too hard to tell. Texas is a mix of densely populated counties, which tend to trend a bit blue, and tons of rural counties that are very red. On the surface, the news looks good — of the 700k voters added since 2016, one of the counties seeing the most voters added to the roles was Dallas, which added 50k new voters and which went 61/35 for Clinton. But it’s entirely possible that there are 20 tiny red counties around Dallas that together also added 50k voters, which would offset the Dallas gains. And if those counties did add 50k voters, it’s also possible that maybe those are Democrats who are registering despite being in very red counties, and that new registrations won’t match traditional voting patterns in those places. There are just too many unknowns. We can’t tell if Texas Dems are closing the gaps, or if everyone is more engaged this time around.
So...I’d suggest that the record breaking registrations are good news, but I would’t cast my chicken bones to try to figure out what sort of partisan mix is in that data.
Texas — particularly vulnerable to a blue wave??
Texas is a weird state. For all the midterm hubbub, 538 is still predicting zero significant seat flips. Ugh. There are a few races that are quite close, but per their model, if the election were held today and every 50.1% or better candidate won, 538 suggests that Texas would not see any change to the House, Senate or major statewide offices.
(But stay tuned. Blue money about to come crashing into media markets).
That said, Texas might be more vulnerable to a blue wave than we realize. The state has the worst midterm turnout rates. Literally. Averaging the 2006, 2010 and 2014 midterms puts them dead last. Even Washington DC, which has NO REPS IN CONGRESS, has better turnout.
As a result, Texas has fallen into a predictable pattern. In presidential years, it’s modestly red, with older white voters representing about 50% of the voting electorate. Then in midterms we see GOP voting decline moderately, and Dem voting falls off a freaking cliff. The voting electorate becomes 70% old white people, and it goes how you’d expect.
This history suggest that 1. Dems have way more room to grow in midterm voting and 2. if turnout remains low, then each voter we bring to the polls has marginally more power than in a state with higher turnout. In other words, if Republican voting is business-as-usual for a midterm, and we turn out new voters in the key areas, the blue wave could extend further than we might think in Texas.
Also, early voting is looking strong
Many of you have probably seen the early reports on early voting, but this is a diary about Texas so let’s rehash for anyone who hasn’t.
Harris County: Houston, which went for Clinton by 12 points, reported first day voting that just SMASHED records. The previous record was 2010, with 35,000 votes — Harris reported 63,188 first day in-person votes. Wow.
Travis County: Austin is highly Democratic, and turnout here smashed records as well, with 32,000 votes banks...compared to 10,252 in 2014. First day early voting in Travis was about 90% of first day early voting in 2016.
One Last Thing…
Just to think about. Since the March primaries, over 550,000 Texans took the time to register to vote. To me, this would be a group that is highly likely to vote. That’s over 10% of the typical Texas midterm electorate — last time about 4.7 million ballots were cast.
In this climate...in this year of resistance...I am optimistic that these numbers represent Texas Dems stepping up to change their state. The data just makes it feel like Democrats are waking up in a place where they previously had little reason to be engaged. Will it be enough to affect these races? I have no idea, but I’m hopeful that it will be.