The SCOTX and CCA results

The state's highest courts also got a case of the crimson tide effect from yesterday.

Let's note before we look at those numbers, all of which are courtesy of the Texas Secretary of State's office, that the highest recorded percentage of the state's 14 million-plus registered voters participated in the race for governor, at 33.57%.  Texas has a 2013 population by the US Census of 26.45 million, and was projected in July of this year to be a smidge over 27 million.  But not all of those folks are of voting age, nor are able to vote because of citizenship status and other reasons.  The number of eligible voters in Texas -- what is called in demographer's parlance CVAP or citizen voting age population -- was estimated to be (thanks to Michael Li) 15.583 million in 2011, with a projected increase of about 700K per year (687K in 2011, up to 747K in 2014).

Or about 17.68 million, give or take.  Here's a table to start with if you want to check my math.

With all that in mind, when I have frequently said here that about half of Texas residents are not registered to vote, and about half of those registered do not bother to cast a ballot, you know where I'm coming from.  This quick and dirty method is a little generous to non-voting Texans in 2014; as Greg Abbott's high-water mark tells us, only a third of the state's registered voters, or  4.7 million, voted in the governor's race and he earned 2.784 million (or 59.25%) of those.  Update: Ted with more on this.

Another way to put it: a little over two and three-quarter million Texans -- or about the population of Houston and a few of its surrounding incorporated areas like Bellaire, Pasadena, The Woodlands, Sugar Land, Katy, Baytown, Galveston, and so on -- voted for Greg Abbott for governor... which is about 10% of the population of the state.  He'll still consider that a mandate to do whatever he likes (not that anything was holding him back before, of course).

Now then, on to the TSC and CCA races.

-- Hecht (R) 59.6, Moody (D) 37.3, Oxford (L) 3.05%.  This is the virtual baseline for statewide Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians up and down the ballot.  Compare these percentages to the statewide results in the previous post as well; you'll find the deviations are only a point or two at most.

-- Brown 60.3 (R), Meyers (D) 36.5, Ash (L) 3.18%.

-- Boyd (R) 58.9, Benavides (D) 37.6, Fulton (L) 2.75, Waterbury (G) .74%.

Next is a Supreme Court race that had no Democratic candidate on the ballot but did have a Green one.  Leaving a statewide contest unchallenged by the blue team is the primary reason why Texas Greens are able to secure ballot access for the next election cycle.

-- Johnson (R)78.8, Koelsch (L) 11.95, Chisholm (G) 9.24%.

Democratic ticket-splitters appear to have gravitated to all three remaining parties on the ballot.  Phil Johnson received the highest number of votes of any Republican on the ballot -- more than John Cornyn, over a hundred thousand more than George P. Bush (who topped Greg Abbott by 30K).

Libertarian Goelsch, with 444,000-plus votes, got almost seven times the number of votes that Kathie Glass got.  When it comes to hotly-contested governor's races, Libertarians get scared and return to the GOP.  And Jim Chisholm's 391,00 votes was just the second-largest for Greens in the state.

What this race demonstrates is that Democrats first vote for Republicans, and then they vote for Libertarians and Greens in nearly equal measure when there's no D.  Another piece of evidence that refutes the tired myth that Greens somehow cause Democrats to lose.  And that's when Dems don't skip the race altogether (the undervotes in this contest, from the one directly above it, jumped to over 6% of the state's 14 million registered voters).

Democrats cause Democrats to lose.  But we knew that already from abysmal turnout.

-- Richardson (R) 59.8, Granberg (D) 36.57, Bennett (L) 2.93%.  With no Green in the race, we're back to a familiar pattern of vote distribution.

The two Court of Criminal Appeals races had a Republican defeating a Libertarian and a Green.  You'll notice the previous trend.

-- Yeary (R) 76.27, Parker (L) 13.25, Sanders-Castro (G) 10.47%.

Quanah Parker and Judith Sanders-Castro both benefited from their names and achieved the highest votes totals in Texas for Libertarian and Green Party candidates respectively.

-- Newell (R) 78.26, Strange III 13.16, Altgelt 8.57%.

This is the pattern as we have seen above.

More analysis of Harris County results tomorrow morning, followed by the Senate and gubernatorial races elsewhere across the country tomorrow afternoon or evening.

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.

Yeah, the polls were skewed.

Just in the other direction.  Update: Nate Silver, via TPM.

"Based on results as reported through early Wednesday morning — I’ll detail our method for calculating this in a moment — the average Senate poll conducted in the final three weeks of this year’s campaign overestimated the Democrat’s performance by 4 percentage points," Silver wrote at Five Thirty Eight. "The average gubernatorial poll was just as bad, also overestimating the Democrat’s performance by 4 points."

In almost every key Senate race -- Colorado, North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Alaska -- the pre-election polls favored Democrats. The trend led to a shocked cadre of political observers as Virginia Sen. Mark Warner (D) barely eked out a win in a race that most had written off as an easy hold for Democrats because of the polling.

"Interestingly, this year’s polls were not especially inaccurate. Between gubernatorial and Senate races, the average poll missed the final result by an average of about 5 percentage points — well in line with the recent average," Silver concluded. "The problem is that almost all of the misses were in the same direction.

Texas Democrats couldn't blame it on the rain, either.  It was a much better set of returns than Republicans could have hoped for in their wettest of dreams.  They will believe that it was, you know, ordained.  A gift from God.

It's worse than 2014, particularly here in Harris County, where all the Ds got swept out to sea.  And it's no consolation that it was just as bad in North Carolina, or Georgia, or Wisconsin, or Florida, or...

The best news I can find is that Denton passed their fracking ban.  So there's that.  And there's this, under a teaser subhead that reads: "Patrick supporters get angry with reporters".

"You are being disrespectful!", she's screeching, when the cameras cut to their talking heads just as Ed Young of Second Baptist Church began his prayer for Dan Patrick (currently photos numbered 36 and 37 in the Chron's slideshow).

Update (11/6): Isiah Carey has more and more pictures. And Juanita Jean has a screenshot from Carey's Facebook page with a photo of longtime ABC-13 reporter Deborah Wrigley intervening in the confrontation above.

Comparisons to tsunami survivors, the latest Borg assimilees, and drowning victims aside, the expected gloating has turned into taunting in a few of the usual places.  Doncha hate a poor winner?

Go ahead and tear down the goalposts, start a white riot, burn a few autos and ransack some light retail outlets, Republicans.  The cops don't haul out the tanks and the tear gas when it's white folks.  Nobody's going to shoot you no matter how badly you misbehave.  Here are a few questions for when you finish your bullying and your tantrums; we'll wait.

-- What time do the lynchings begin?  Not the one of Mitch McConnell by Ted Cruz.  I'm asking about the crucifixions of the women who have abortions, of the gays, and the other sinners and non-believers.

Or will they be stonings instead?  Wood timbers cost money, I know.

-- We'll forget about marijuana decriminalization in Texas.  Can we still listen to rock and roll music, or will that lead to dancing and fornication?

-- Should women go ahead and begin registering their reproductive parts for confiscation by the government?  You know, like you constantly complain about your guns and Obama?  "Greg Abbott's gonna git yer koochies" just doesn't have the same ring to it.  Fear simply does not motivate Democrats in the same way that it does Republicans.  For their sake, I hope they can someday find something that will.

-- When do you start replacing "Obama" with "Hillary" and "Clinton"?  Misogyny worked pretty well for you in this election; is it as easy to shift gears into that from overt racial hostility?  Serious question, but I think I already know the answer.

Oh well, we'll try to have some fun and snark as we continue the slow slide to theocratic fascism in Texas.  Coming soon to your state too, non-Texans, so don't consider yourselves safe in Delaware or Connecticut or even Massachusetts, and correspondingly smug as a result.  Your problems are Blue Dogs and neoliberals, which suggests a thorough housecleaning is in order.

Some numbers and appropriate comment about them later.

The blues

Which is better than having a case of the red ass.  I don't know, it feels kind of crimson and wavy to me this morning.  At this time four years ago there were still very few people (publicly) thinking a tsunami was rolling in off the coast.

I'm feeling a little deja vu, personally.  On the bright side, the rain in Texas today seems to be falling mainly in the plain.

That's a good thing.  Those parts of the state are overly conservative, and besides, they need the rain anyway.

Mostly feeling ominous because of stories like this one.

HOUSTON – A day before Texans go to the polls, an unusual group gathered for lunch at a Mexican restaurant not far from downtown: an unemployed African-American grandmother; a University of Houston student originally from Pennsylvania; a pregnant mother who had recently moved back to the area with her family; and a low-income white woman who struggled to make eye contact and kept her money in a pack strapped around her waist.

They had not met each other before, but they had one thing in common: Thanks to Texas’s strict voter ID law, they all faced massive hurdles in casting a vote. Over fish tacos and guacamole, they shared their stories—hesitantly at first, then with growing eagerness as they realized they weren’t alone in being victimized by their state.

The photo ID law is working as intended.  Nobody can say they don't understand why people cannot get an ID any more after this election.  If they do, they're just being willfully ignorant.

Anyway, I got a pile of pre-recriminations that can be rolled out tomorrow, but we'll save it for then.  Hey, there's an outside chance I won't even need them.

Update: Noah seems to be a little down in the mouth as well.