Wednesday, November 05, 2014

The red tide rolls in

And as Bill O'Reilly observed, goes out again.  We can't explain that (but that won't stop us from trying).  From the top of my ballot....

-- Cornyn 62, Alameel 34, Libertarian Paddock almost 3, Green "Spicybrown" Sanchez, 1.17%.  The historical Texas election trends hold except for Alameel, who was a few points points weaker than the upper part of the Democratic statewide slate.  Does anyone want to see this man carry the banner again in 2016 2018 against Ted Cruz, as he has forewarned us?  For all the purported danger Cornyn was supposed to be in from a primary challenger like David Barton or Steve Stockman, the freaks all came back home to him.  He stands on the cusp of leading the Senate's new majority caucus... if Cruz lets him.

-- Culberson 63, Cargas 34.5, Lib 2%.  I'm just disappointed that Cargas hit the over in my personal handicapping (I had him at 33, which is where he was most of the night) of his second defeat at the hands of Cumbersome.  I'm not going to be voting for any oil and gas attorneys running for anything any more, ever.

-- Abbott 59, Davis 39, Glass 1.40, Parmer .39%.  Everybody underperformed expectations... except Abbott and Parmer.  The worst and latest poll had Davis losing by 16.  There will be recriminations aplenty, but I for one won't be piling on BGTX.  I do not know what the value of their efforts were in terms of raw votes or percentages, but anybody who throws rocks at their Aegean-stables cleaning efforts needs to sit down and shut up.  Frankly the only thing that has motivated a groundswell of Democratic support in Texas in my lifetime  is when there is a tightly-contested presidential primary between an establishment, conservative candidate and a (perceived, at least) left-leaning, agent-of-change challenger.  Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders: pick up the white paging telephone please.

-- Patrick 58, Van de Putte 39, Butler 2.55, Courtney .59%.  LVDP clocked in with about 22,000 fewer votes than Davis in statewide returns that are 98.77% complete at this posting.  That should put to rest any arguments that she would have fared better at the top of the ticket.  This article suggests that either the Latino Decisions poll released on Election Day was off... or that Patrick received some massive amount of the "non-Latino" vote.  I think it's both of those.

As his first agenda item upon the inauguration of his term as Your Lieutenant Governor, Patrick will issue a fatwa declaring that all Texas women will wear burqas for the next two years.  And that's going to be as liberal as it gets, ladies.  I cannot wait to see if he carried the female vote in some equivalent number to Abbott (52-47 by the exit polls).  That's a statement that will be repeated often, you can be certain.  Update: CNN's exit polling says it was a nine-point margin.

-- Paxton 59, Houston 38, Balagia 2.53, Osborne .63%.  Paxton's pending legal issues dissuaded no Republicans from voting for him.  The GOP vote is as monolithic as can be imagined.

-- Hegar 58, Collier 37.67, Sanders 2.67, Shafto .97%.  The first statewide contest that showed some slight erosion away from the two major party candidates.  Libertarian Ben Sanders had the second-highest showing for the Libs in both vote total and percentage; he got twice as many votes as Kathie Glass, the now-two-time Libertarian gubernatorial loser.  Deb Shafto increased her numbers about 15K and half of a percent from the baseline of candidates preceding her on the ballot, largely I think on the basis of her being the Green gubernatorial candidate in 2010.

-- Bush 60.7, Cook 35.3, Knight 2.71, Alessi 1.28%.  George Pee got more votes than Greg Abbott, folks.  And the Green candidate, Valerie Alessi, slightly over-performed ticketmates above her, but not those below, as we will see again in a moment.

-- Miller 58.6, Hogan 36.8, Palmquist 2.87, Kendrick 1.68%.  It's disappointing that my man Kenneth did not see the surge of support I envisioned.  This is the cause and effect of straight ticket voting demonstrated in all its appalling ignorance.  Jim Hogan should not have received a single vote, period.  It's difficult to encourage Democrats to vote when they make choices this poor when they do.

-- Sitton 58, Brown 36.5, Miller, 3.15, Salinas 2%.  The Green, Martina Salinas, benefited from her Latino surname as much as a vigorous campaign, the highest-profile one of all Greens.  She got nearly 93,000 votes, the largest amount of any G in a contested (with a Democrat) race.  Maybe there are a few Texans who like the idea of a committed environmentalist sitting on the board of commissioners that regulate the oil and gas industry in Texas.  Steve Brown, the only African American on the statewide ballot for Democrats, fell short of Jim Hogan's tally despite running an all-out campaign.  And Mark Miller scored almost the highest of any statewide Libertarian in a contested race.

These lower-ballot statewide tilts seem to offer the greatest opportunity for the minor parties to make an impact.  We'll watch and see if they take this lesson to heart for the future.

Back today with a post about statewide judicial races and turnout.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

The big number for me is always 5.

5%.

That's what the minor parties need in a statewide race (ANY statewide race) in order to retain ballot access.

According to my recollection, there was at least one statewide judicial race where no democrat ran, and that probably gave at least the Libertarians their 5%. But the Greens? We'll see. i hope they don't have to petition again in 2016.

Gadfly said...

Boy, all blowouts, eh? No other word for it.

I too am disappointed Ken didn't do better. Too many straight lever-pullers.

Got my national-level postmortem up now. Texas-level will be tomorrow.

PDiddie said...

The Greens are good, Katy; the Dems didn't field a candidate in some of the statewide judicial races, so the Green got in excess of 10% in two races. That post is coming later today.

Gadfly said...

Yeah, Greens got their Supreme Court and CCA 5 percenters. Now, what will they do with it in 2016?

On BGTX, I can partially fault them, per your comments about the gov's race, Perry. Maybe they should have vetted Davis better in some way before hopping in bed so totally with her.

Also, yes, we'll see if the 2016 Pres race — and better Dem candidates — have any effect. That said, there's no Senate race in 2016 either, so who knows what will be next.

A more liberal across-the-board, and less buttoned down, candidate for either gov or senator in 2018 is going to be big.

PDiddie said...

Not Battleground's job to vet candidates.

Wendy Davis was the only realistic option Texas Democrats had for governor in 2014. And she was the best option, as her votes compared with LVDP's show. LVDP had to be convinced to run at for anything... by Wendy Davis, you will recall.

Speculation to the contrary is worthless. IMHO.

In my experience nobody vets candidates for the TDP. The state chair recruits candidates, but because the slate is never full the Greens slot someone into a race left blank and secure ballot access for the next cycle.

So Gilberto Hinojosa can't even get that right (but neither could Boyd Richie before him).

If anybody actually is persuading -- or more likely, dissuading -- people in terms of running for statewide office in the Texas Democratic Party, it's going to be a handful of people like Steve Mostyn, John Eddie Williams, and the like.

Gadfly said...

Oh, no, not in the sense of their stances, it's not their job. But, in the sense of how good or bad a campaign said candidate might run, IMO, it is their job to vet.

I think part of the deeper issue is that BGTX isn't sure what it's supposed to be, and further muddied that by connecting that closely with Davis.

Is it a get out the vote group? A quasi-PAC? Both? And more?

==

Within the official, and unofficial TDP, maybe that's part of the problem, as far as its developing candidates. We've talked back and forth about the likes of West and Ellis steadfastly taking passes on statewide offices, for example.

==

Anyway, for both BGTX and the TDP, the road back up the hill just got shown to be steeper and longer.

Unknown said...

I'm not sure the Texas Dems have demonstrated any kind of central planning during my lifetime.

Let me give you an example I know about vis a vis the Greens. In 2000, a guy named Doug Sandage tried to run for Senate as a Dem and was told, "If you can't bring $2 million to the table, the party will not support you in any way."

So he ran as a Green.

A few years later, the Dems did not have people to run in MOST the statewide races, and as the date to file got close, whoever was running the party called a perennial Green candidate named Charlie Mauch and asked him to run for statewide office as a Dem. Charlie said, "Well, I can't bring $2 million to the table." The Dems didn't care - they just wanted a name on the ballot, which was the opposite of what their message had been to Sandage 2 or 4 years earlier.

It just doesn't make any sense that you have no Democrats in so many races and LaRouche people in some of the others. It's been decades - decades! - that they've been screwing around like this. We deserve better.

PDiddie said...

Katy: Good old Charlie Mauch (RIP).

Gadfly: As this was BGTX's first rattle out of the box, and they stepped on a few toes, then I hesitate to guess what their future going forward might be. They need funding, and that means Mostyn.

This article in the TO suggests that jumping on the Davis bandwagon wasn't in their original plan, but that they didn't have much choice after the filibuster.