Okay, so I’m not done throwing datasets at you from the disastrous 2016 election for the Harris County Republican Party. I’ll even throw in a little hope for the 2018 election this time, although those promised ‘solutions’ are still going to be a while. Hey, it takes time to talk to as many stakeholders as possible!
One of the questions asked was about turnout. I’ve already put that out there for the last 5 general elections in the county but still people want more! They want to see net turnout by state rep districts so that they can comment on the party’s allocation of resources. Okay, we can do that but it is only relevant for the 2012 vs 2016 Presidential turnout because of redistricting. Take a look.
This table is sorted by the percentage increase for each State Rep District:
Since percentages don’t win elections, this one is sorted by the increase in ballots cast:
And lastly, take a look at the same districts sorted by increase in Straight R votes:
When you look at that data, ask (at least) two questions. Where did the party allocate its resources and what was the message the party was pushing? Then ask, did their strategy work?
When I talk to people that were very involved with those decisions, I’m told that a significant portion of the resources went to SRD’s 133 and 134. Obviously we know the message was “Harris County Works” so “vote straight Republican”. I’ll let you answer the questions posed.
But all is not lost! There are some results in County Commissioner Jack Morman’s Precinct 2 that suggest it isn’t all doom and gloom for his reelection bid in 2018. Here are the results for the ‘governing’ candidates that ran in his precinct:
As you can see, Republicans won 3 of the 5 races. And it is really amazing how close Jim Leitner came to beating Vince Ryan in that precinct. And it is really, really super duper amazing that George Moore beat Sherry Matula AND had more votes than Devon Anderson. How many of you have ever heard of George Moore or even know what he was running for? Matula has fairly high name recognition in a large part of Precinct 2, so that makes it even better. One last question: which slate sent mailers into Precinct 2 on behalf of George Moore?
Morman has two full years to work on making the precinct even better for Republicans. And before you say ‘Adrian Garcia, oh no!’, look at that result for Hickman over Gonzalez. That happened in a high turnout Presidential election, one where the Democrats were focused on turning out Latinos to defeat Trump. And don’t forget to look at the turnout numbers already posted for non-presidential years. Plus, we’ll have a much stronger ticket with Ed Emmett, Chris Daniel and Orlando Sanchez running. Anything could happen in the next two years but barring something unexpected (a possible primary challenge to Greg Abbott?), the R’s should do quite well.
I’m starting to look forward to putting forth my solutions to this mess and see your reaction. There were mistakes made and we didn’t have to get slaughtered. There is hope! But the big question remains: when will the HCRP leadership accept responsibility for the disaster and will they decide to look for solutions outside of their inner circle?