As you know, we provided voters with a matrix of the recommendations of various slates for the 2014 Harris County Republican Party Primary. Two of the “Big 3”, Terry Lowry and Dr. Steve Hotze, were substantially less influential than in years past. I’m sure there are a variety of reasons for that but it is a fact. The relative newcomer HRBC slate led the pack with a 93{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} chance of their recommendation either winning outright or making it to a runoff.
Here are the ones that I know sent out mailers in large quantities:
[table id=31 /]
One of the obvious differences is that HRBC and the C-Club had recommendations in fewer races, making it easier to get higher percentages.
I think that we can say that we are starting to see the effects of having more slates in the marketplace, thus diluting the influence of the Big 3. Here is a comparison of the Big 3 for this year vs 2010:
[table id=32 /]
The 2010 numbers come from this post I wrote in 2010: Do Alleged Pay to Play Endorsements Work?
Also in 2010, if all three men agreed on a candidate, there was a 100{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} chance that the candidate would either win or be in a runoff. This year the three men agreed on candidates in 18 races, with 15 of those candidates winning or making a runoff. Still very good but 83.3{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} is a long way from 100{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}.
Although they didn’t send mass quantities of mailers, the Conservative Coalition of Harris County slate’s recommendations were 88{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} successful. This group is all volunteer, made up of activists in the party. I’d say they did pretty well.
Please note that this is not an in-depth statistical analysis, so don’t bother yelling about correlation, causation, or anything else. I’m putting this out there because I think it is interesting. And because I think that diluting the influence of the “Big 3” is critical to the future success of the Harris County Republican Party.