County Results for 2012 Texas Primary

Below you'll find links to the Elections Divisions of area County Clerks offices. They are responsible for running state and national elections, including primaries. They also run elections in single purpose governments like Independent School Districts. Cities are responsible for conducting their own elections, though sometimes they contract with the county to have them carry it out.  

For Brazoria County:
- Democratic Primary (3,331 votes cast)
- Republican Primary (22,834 votes cast)
- Total Turnout - 26,830 - 7.88%

For Fort Bend County:
- Democratic Primary (9,871 votes cast)
- Republican Primary (36,749 votes cast)
- Total Turnout - 47,627 - ?%

For Galveston County:
- Democratic Primary
- Republican Primary
- Total Turnout -
(website down as of this posting)

For Harris County:
- Democratic Primary (71,360 votes cast)
- Republican Primary (160,752 votes cast)
- Total Turnout - 238,545 - 12.54%

For further information on the specific job descriptions of the Elections Division in each county click on Travis County's website here. The Texas Secretary of State's website also has information about how elections are to be conducted in the state, including this comprehensive page detailing the laws and procedures pertaining to County Clerks. Enjoy.

On Establishment Conservatives and Movement Conservative.

Robert Miller's blog today - he's a public law guy at Locke Lord - has a post pointing out that many many Republican Texas Legislature races feature competition between an establishment conservative and a movement conservative. There are no moderates in the Republican Party anymore. They have been pushed to the side by the Tea Party.

What's the difference between the two?

The former is a fiscal conservative willing to recognize a role for government to play in educating the workforce, building roads, providing water and the various other items necessary for civilized life.

The latter "believes that government, by definition, is inherently wasteful and inefficient and that we can continuously cut government spending and still provide necessary services."

Movement conservatives tend to be more passionate about their positions and are in a better position to win primary elections. If voter turnout is low in the Republican Primary on election day, expect them to do well. This can have one of two outcomes, either the state drifts further to the right, or the general population - assuming they are more moderate than the movement conservatives - finds them too extreme and votes for Democrats in November.

Various stories related Texas House and Senate Races

Expect a handful of these in the next few days.

This may be a bit dated, but Burnt Orange Report (which tilts a bit left) has two separate pages previewing the Texas House and Texas Senate Races. It has a third section on the Democratic Primaries.

Click here to find competitive races

The Texas Business Roundtables website contains a handy chart that makes it easy to find them.

Romney's pivot to the center

A useful description of the job ahead of him and the problems it poses:


Romney, after all, managed to secure the nomination only by strenuously avoiding friction with the base. On every major issue, he aligned himself with the party’s Obama-era orthodoxy, and when he attacked his GOP opponents, he made sure to do it from their right. This, of course, was in response to conservatives’ built-in suspicions about whether he really is one of them. So far, he’s given them what they want, at least in terms of policy positions. But they’re watching him closely, looking to see if he sells them out to appeal to the middle of the electorate against Obama – and ready to raise hell if he does.

This is producing some awkwardness already, like when Romney said that he wouldn’t go out of his way to get rid of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (what general election voters like to hear) but refused to say whether he would have signed it as president (thus avoiding a position that would put him directly at odds with the base). The overall effect was to reinforce the image of Romney as spineless. Expect to see more of this straddling in the months ahead. Romney faces more pressure than previous GOP nominees to keep his party’s base happy, but he also seems to recognize that fully embracing its agenda will be suicide in the fall.

From the NYT: Does Romney Still Need to Court Conservatives?

Now that Romney seems to have the nomination in hand, commentary has focused on his expected pivot to the middle and whether he can do this without losing his base. This is what 2301s wrote about last week, so you are all ahead of the game.

Here are a variety of opinions about whether Romney still needs to bend far for conservative support.

Will Citizens United destroy parties as we know them?

In Citizens United v FEC, the Supreme Court removed significant limits on money in politics by allowing corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want on campaigns -through SuperPACs, as long as it is not coordinated with a candidate or party.

This allows them to bypass parties however and become sole benefactors of specific candidates. Since parties traditionally perform this role, there are suspicions that the case may end up leading to the breakup of parties, since the may be irrelevant. Timothy Noah thinks this might be especially true of the Republican Party:

Super PACs have made it so easy for millionaires and billionaires to spend unlimited sums on behalf of a particular candidate that these groups are now routinely outspending Republican presidential primary campaigns. Indeed, to a remarkable extent, these oligarch-controlled super PACs are the primary campaign. And, while both parties can create super PACs, so far GOP super PACs are burying their Democratic counterparts. Of the top ten individuals funding super PACs, only one—Jeffrey Katzenberg—is a Democrat. 

Have renegades taken over the Republican Party?

Thomas Edsall - writing in the NYT - thinks so. Historically, Republican Party voters have been - in his words - compliant to the needs of the electorate, but no longer seems to be the case. The recent election in South Carolina, which generally votes for the eventual nominee, went with Newt Gingrich this time. He analyzes changes within the party, as well as the electoral system, that has led to this change.

The typical Republican primary voter is more white and evangelical than it has been in the past.

The rise of evangelicals might be the most significant change:

In an analysis of the contests so far, the Faith and Freedom Coalition found that evangelicals are now a majority, 50.53 percent, of all Republican presidential primary voters. The ascendance of the religious right has produced “the highest percentage recorded in a presidential nominating process, 4.29 million votes out of 8.49 million cast,” according to the coalition.

Santorum wins Alabama and Mississippi (sort of)

The Senator won the popular vote in each state, but Romney got more delegates in Mississippi.

Regarding Political Parties in the South

From the New Republic, an analysis of the Republican Party in the South - especially Alabama and Mississippi since they will be holding primaries there today. The author notes the racial divides between the two parties - the Republican Party is predominately white and the democratic Party is primalily minority - seem to transcend ideological differences.

Texas political maps have been accepted (I think) and the primary has been set for May 29

A brief story in the Houston Chronicle. Minority groups still claim the plans dilute minority group representation, so the story might not be over.

All maps can be found on District Viewer. Click on select plans then look for Court Ordered Interim Congressional Plan, House Plan, and Senate Plan.

The New Hampshire Primary Results

For comprehensive info on yesterday's vote click on the links below:

- The NYT has the full results here.
- Wikipedia: New Hampshire Primary.
- Andrew Sullivan complies reactions to the results, and live-blogs the event.
- The NYT's delegate counter is here.

How Romney Won

It involved a great deal of data which allowed his campaign to target specific voters. Modern campaign techniques involves data, high powered processing and sophisticated algorithms

Ideological extremisn and the 2012 primaries

This column hits a often repeated political theme - candidates for the presdiency must first win their party's nomination before they can run for the general election. Nothing new here. Generally one has to take more ideologically "extreme" positions to win the support of the party identifiers than is necessary to win the genewral election. Sometimes this ca the promary has adopted too many extreme positions to be competitive ion the general election.

The author wonders whether the Republican primary process might to this to the eventual nominee. As we approach our section on elections, it is worth sondering whether this is the best way to ensure that we elect the best posible people president.

Business Plan Candidates

This post is a bit hyper-critical of the Republican field, but it says some interesting things about the choices that have been made regarding who has decided to run - or not - and why - or why not.

Note the term "business plan candidates."

Cain 28% Romney 21% Paul 10%

Poll results are in from Iowa, where the first primary will be held. People are still trying to figure out Cain's support. Here's a graphical analysis of the impact of Cain's 999 tax plan, plus suggestions for improvement.

Florida changes date of its primary

Traditionally - and only because its always been done this way, Iowa has the first presidential caucus and New Hampshire has the first presidential primary. Florida - along with other states - have tried to nudge ahead of them though. Florida has made it official for 2012, and other states (South Carolina and Nevada) may change their primary dates as a result.

Some argue that they should. Neither Iowa nor New Hampshire has a population that mirrors that of the United States so there is no guarantee that the winner of those primaries will go on to be the winner of the general election.

Is Horse Race Journalism Unfairly Maligned?

The political press is commonly criticized for simply focusing on the horse race aspect of presidential campaigns and ignoring policy proposals and other aspects of it, but here is a defense of that approach. This type of jouranism may be necessary in the early stages of a campaign - the invisible primary (or the money primary) - when many decisions regarding which candidates should run and who will work and provide monetary support for them are done out of sight.

. . . primary elections are different. A primary campaign, and especially its early “invisible” period, can be understood as a time when party leaders—in other words, “insiders”—talk to, and argue with, each other about who their standard-bearer should be. Many factors go into that choice, from perceptions about electability to petty personal considerations. But the argument is, in large part, a contest over who wields power within the party, and what sort of values and goals the party wants to prioritize.
 

From Politico: Decision time for GOP elites

After staying on the sidelines for a while, the Republican Party establishment may be about to pick sides in the race.

As the GOP presidential field emerges from the traditional Labor Day starting gate, the candidates are confronting a sobering reality: They’re already running out of time.

Though there are still months to go before Republicans start casting real primary ballots, party leaders say the dynamics of the race could be locked in place by the end of October. That’s because the Republican establishment — which has largely stayed neutral in the GOP primary — is about to start picking sides.

After countless attempts to lure new options into their party’s presidential field, GOP fundraisers and power brokers are coming to terms with what looks like an increasingly binary choice between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.

Perry Zooms to Front of Pack for 2012 GOP Nomination

Perry Zooms to Front of Pack for 2012 GOP Nomination.

The Gallup Poll shows that our governor has surged ahead of the pack for the Republican nomination. Now comes the hard part - staying ahead. I'll use this post to start a series my 2301s can use to follow the battle among Republicans and write me a good report to turn in at the end of the semester. Note the tag: 2301 fall 2011 report. I'll use it for similar posts.