Saturday, February 15, 2014

Millions of Texas voters, mostly Ds, are MIA

Ross Ramsey, talking about things some people are painfully aware of.

The biggest chunk of the state’s growth can be attributed to an increase in the minority populations, and the biggest part of that growth has been Hispanic. And that is where the hype about politics revs up: To the extent that they vote, minorities in Texas tend to vote for Democrats more than Republicans. If the number of minorities rise along with the population, and if those new voters behave like their voting counterparts, then the electorate should grow to favor the Democrats.

That was the idea behind the Democrats’ “dream team” ticket in 2002, which included a couple of big-city mayors, Ron Kirk and Kirk Watson; a wealthy Hispanic oilman, Tony Sanchez Jr.; and a mix of proven veterans and promising prospects. It didn’t work, but there were some hopeful years, when Democrats in the Legislature made gains.

Then the 2008 presidential race arrived. The Democratic primary that year had 2,874,986 Texas voters. Most of the time, presidential contests are all but settled by the time the campaigns reach Texas. But in 2008, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton had clinched the nomination, and their battle over Texas lifted turnout considerably. The excitement over a contested national race even helped increase Republican turnout that year.

The Republicans held their numbers, turning out about the same number of voters in each of the two primaries that followed, but many of the Democratic primary voters who came out in 2008 never returned. In 2010, only 680,548 Texans voted in the Democratic primary. Two years after that, only 590,164 voted. In general elections, their top-line numbers also fell. Obama received 43.7 percent of the overall vote in the 2008 general election. Former Mayor Bill White of Houston got 42.3 percent in 2010 in a race for governor, and Paul Sadler lost the U.S. Senate election to Ted Cruz with 40.6 percent.

The population may be booming, but the electorate is not, and the Democratic electorate got smaller.

These figures have been previously identified; there is a large number of Texans who are citizens and are of voting age -- between 2.5 and 3 million -- that are not registered to vote.  Those are the prime targets for Battleground Texas.

But there are some eight million Texans registered to vote who did not do so in 2012.  They might not all be Democrats, but you can rest assured that a large majority of them are.  And that is precisely where the turning of Texas to a purplish shade of blue rests.

Republicans are confident their firewall can prevent that from happening.  Between the biweekly stoking of Tea Party outrage to the efforts, legal and extralegal, to keep potential Democratic voters from doing so (photo ID requirements and thug tactics practiced by the King Street Patriot/True the Vote pale mafia), the job lies with the Texas Democratic Party, their candidates, activists, and assorted supporters to make the case for change.  To persuade those millions of Texans who have no habit of regularly performing their civic function -- of participating in the selection of the leaders of the state -- into those that do.  Here's some Census statistics from a worthwhile article by Patti Hart, in the Chron...

46.3 percent of Texans earning more than $75,000 voted in 2010, compared to 26.7 percent of those earning less than $35,000 

52.4 percent of Texans with college degrees voted, compared to 22.8 percent with less than a high school diploma 

16 percent of Texans under 30 voted, while 42.7 percent of the over-30 crowd participated 

43.8 percent of white Texans voted in 2010, compared with 38.7% of African Americans and 23.1% of Hispanics

That task makes turning a battleship around look like a walk in the park.  Back to Ramsey...

The Republicans have more money, and their steady, habitual turnout has given them a list of stalwarts who vote no matter what. The Democrats have a list of stalwarts, too, but it is considerably smaller.

So they are looking for first-timers, people who haven’t voted before because they just moved here or just recently came of age or haven’t been involved in elections before and are just waiting for someone to ask them.

And there is the other group, the 2.2 million Texans who turned out in March 2008 and haven’t been seen in a primary location since then. The Democrats already have their names, if not their votes.

GOTV is a door to door, block to block effort.  Turning out one's precinct means visiting your neighbor, calling them on the phone, or mailing them a postcard.  We'll get a glimpse, beginning next week as early voting for the March primaries gets under way, as to whether Battleground Texas' initial efforts are bearing some fruit.

Eye on Williamson has more detail, and links to other analysis.

Friday, February 14, 2014

My Funny Valentine

Davis moves back to the left

Let's give Senator Davis the hap tip she deserves for doing the right things this week.  First on weed...

Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis said she supports medical marijuana use as well easing the state's legal consequences for possessing small amounts of the drug.

Davis' comments echo those of current Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who said he supports less stringent penalties in Texas for marijuana use. 

She moved (relatively) quickly here, to draft off Governor Goodhair's surprising shift, and left Greg Abbott sitting way over there on the right.  The Dallas News ed board broke it, so let's tap their analysis.

This takes the decriminalization discussion beyond where Perry took it, and Davis showed little hesitation. In his recent remarks in Davos, Perry talked about moving “toward a decriminalization,” whereas Davis said she’d consider signing a bill removing criminal provisions for possessing small amounts. That would be de facto decriminalization if Texas made small-time possession a civil matter.

Pre-Davos, I doubt Davis would have been as willing to address this head on. But Perry provided safe harbor to Davis or anyone else who wanted to go there. Plus, a statewide poll last year showed voting Texans are open to change on the pot question.

Davis probably picks up more votes that she loses on this. Those general election voter who are motivated by law-and-order issues aren’t getting near her anyway. Those persuadable middle-spectrum voters who could tilt either way have an important issue to consider here.

Davis, to them, might seem more in touch with a national sense that the war on drugs is so Richard Nixon. Our editorial page has said we appear to have reached a national tipping point.

Sticking by the status quo on drugs would make Abbott seem decidedly retrograde. Then again, his handlers seem to be looking for a very safe course so far. Abbott certainly isn’t coming off as a man of new or great vision, lest it’s Rick Perry’s vision. If he thinks that’s a formula for victory in 2014, we’ll see.

That's a solid take all around.  Kudos to Davis for pouncing on an opportunity left open by Rick Perry, of all people.  And secondly, she comes correct on marriage equality.  Lone Star Q:

In her first public statements in support of same-sex marriage since announcing her campaign for governor, Democrat Wendy Davis called on likely Republican opponent Greg Abbott to stop defending the state’s marriage bans in court.

Davis’ statements came a day after a federal district judge in San Antonio heard arguments in a lawsuit challenging Texas’ marriage bans, including its 2005 constitutional amendment.

Davis, D-Fort Worth, is a strong LGBT ally who has co-authored bills to ban anti-LGBT employment discrimination and bullying during her time in the Legislature. Davis is backed in her run for governor by LGBT groups including Equality Texas and the Human Rights Campaign.

But Davis’ statements to the San Antonio Express-News editorial board on Thursday marked her most public and emphatic endorsements of marriage equality in her 15-year political career.

“It’s my strong belief that when people love each other and are desirous of creating a committed relationship with each other that they should be allowed to marry, regardless of their sexual orientation,” Davis said.

She could have done this much sooner and saved herself a minor amount of grief over it, but getting to the right place (even if it is tardy, like Barack Obama) is still worth commending.

Decriminalizing pot and legalizing gay marriage are the two fastest-moving American taboos that are turning into mores.  Davis put herself on the good side of history -- and the electorate -- by endorsing this social progress.  Open carry is going to remain an unnecessary drag to her base, and nothing she said a couple of days ago on reproductive choice seems to have been beneficial, but if she can string together a few good days like yesterday (particularly with the media, which may wish to overcompensate for the unnecessary roughness with which 2014 opened), she will have the fence-mending under way.

Socratic Gadfly remains skeptical.  That's healthy enough; I'm sticking with 'she finished the week better than she began it'.

I'm just wondering what offensive Tweets and quotes are going to erupt out of this sad gathering of freaks next week.