Burnt Orange Report: - 2008 Elections

Investigating Prop. 8's Texas Donors, One Community at a Time -- Starting in Aggieland

Elides — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 05:59:45 GMT

Like most progressive Texans, I found myself caught up in Barack Obama's historic run to the presidency. I followed the struggle over California's Proposition 8 only fleetingly, as the polls indicated that the effort to make same-sex marriage unconstitutional there was going down to defeat.

Nov. 4 was bittersweet. Gay couples are some of my closest friends. At least two from my Aggieland UCC church had taken advantage of the five-month window of opportunity to be married in California, and now they fear their nuptial rights would be nullified.

Postmortem consensus identified the need to make converts, one person at a time, as gay rights in California had fallen -- albeit by a small margin -- to the plague of ignorance. But before that could take place, one other admonition seemed preeminent: Sun Tsu's advice to "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." There's a hazard in building up an army if you don't know the insurgents in your midst.

Using the San Francisco Chronicle's convenient search engine, I entered "Bryan" and "College Station." The results for anti-Prop. 8 contributors were predictable: a few scattered donors who gave modest amounts.

But I was in for a shock when I selected the option to see who in Aggieland had donated in favor of taking marriage rights away from my LGBT friends. Two Texas A&M academics gave thousands of dollars, hardly a response I had expected from the intellectual community.

Here's my response, detailed on my own personal political blog, in a post entitled: Aggies Do Not Lie, Cheat nor Steal, but Breaking Up Other Aggies' Marriages is Apparently an Honorable Endeavor: Prop. 8's Long and Intrusive Reach to Texas A&M

Here's the link: http://theaggieinsurgency.word...

I hope this will inspire other progressive Texans to do their own amateur investigative reporting in their own community. Root out the agents of intolerance near you, expose them, and then we can start working -- one neighbor at a time -- to lighten the darkness.

True Significance of Chris Bell's loss.

ManOverBoard — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:03:35 GMT

There's more to this story than lazy voters.

The Texas Democratic Party doesn't stand for anything. To win, our candidates must offer a compelling vision of change.

It is not enough to have an excellent field staff, to have a good media campaign, to have a great yard sign campaign, to have attractive/experienced/qualified candidates. It is also necessary to make a strong case for change.
The problem is that the democratic party attempts to win by shmoozing with Texan voters. That just isn't going to work in Texas. Texans will always vote for the real thing. They aren't interested in "Republican Lite" beer.

The other problem is a presumptious attitude about minority support. Democrats cannot take minority votes for granted.

Al Edwards, a black democrat state representative, endorsed phantom democrat Stephanie Simmons in the SD17 primary. No one had even seen a photo of Stephanie Simmons and she is not even listed by the Texas State Bar in TexasBar.com as a Texas Attorney (allegedly a "Missouri City attorney"). Yet, she got 21,000 votes in the primary (14%).

It's obvious that Simmons had the support of black voters, by virtue of the Al Edwards endorsement. And, it is also obvious that black voters in December still felt resentment towards Chris Bell for running against a black democrat.

For example, a Chris Bell neighborhood walker on the eve of the run-off was confronted with a sophisticated black voter who demanded to know why the party assumed he was a likely Chris Bell voter, just because he was an Obama voter.

In leading the State Senate victory committee, Austin State Senator Kirk Watson totally gambled on the Obama vote. As we have seen with Jim Martin's U.S. Senate campaign in Georgia, the Obama voter just isn't there for white candidates. Also, it is interesting that Houston candidates with Jewish sounding names (Troutman, Mincberg) also failed to benefit from Obama voter surges last month.

This is not a matter of stupid uninformed voters. The significance of the Obama voters has simply been misunderstood. We cannot take these people for granted. We must remake the Texas democratic party to focus on the needs and desires of the Obama voter.

First, we should forget about running white candidates for anything. From now on, so long as a black lawyer exists who can fill the slot, all candidates must be black. And, we must be prepared to support aggressive social justice advocacy. The Texas Prison System must be a chief focal point of reform efforts.

We must give Obama voters a reason to believe in the Texas Democratic Party. Otherwise, we might as well close the doors.

Thanks in large part to the failed leadership of Kirk Watson, there is no hope favorable for redistricting in 2010-11. We need to build for 2020.

Put Al Edwards in charge next time.

SD 17 Special Election: Initial Reactions

Michael Hurta — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:06:03 GMT

We are all disappointed. Obviously. On election day, Chris Bell and Democratic Decoy Stephanie Simmons combined for 53.2% of the vote. Most of us think, probably rightly, that if Simmons was not on that ballot, we would be calling Chris Bell a Senator-elect. Instead, he found himself going to a runoff near Christmas, and sadly, the day of the runoff might have had only minimal effect on the outcome. For practical reasons, I might be changing my voter registration to an Austin address soon, but I stayed with my permanent address for the 2008 elections. This may have been my last vote in SD17 in a significant period of time, and here are my first thoughts.

1. This may be just another race after Election Day that shows one thing: many Democratic voters became complacent with Mr. Obama's victory. This, in part, is a compliment to Barack Obama. His supporters have that much confidence in him. But this also says a lot about the presidency and a lot about Democratic voters. We had control of Congress, and now we won control of the Presidency, what more can we do?
Or so, many probably thought. In Georgia, while Jim Martin might not have stood much of a chance, he still fared significantly worse in his runoff than on election day. This is despite Obama organizers from across the nation flying in to help. The Travis County Democratic Party sent weekend busses to help Chris Bell, but Democrats fared worse tonight, too. I know some people who probably would not have voted tonight had I not given them a call to ask them personally. That says nothing of the campaign Chris ran -- they had been inundated with reminders about the election. The fact is, they thought they had done enough.

2. We may find ourself with a Senator in SD17 who is more conservative than her Republican predecessor. Considering Democrats' gains in the district, that will be a sad thought. I sincerely hope that she doesn't become like John Culberson, because then a lot of Democrats could become doubly screwed.

3. Tom Delay may have had some failures in rewriting state house district lines -- that is, Democrats have been gaining in the House A LOT. But he sure did a good job with the state Senate. It looks like the Democrats' only REAL shot to pick this seat up would have been the lack of a Stephanie Simmons on an election day with Barack Obama. Wendy Davis ran a great campaign, but won without a majority despite the presence of Obama and a non-Democratic decoy. It is looking THAT HARD to make these seats competitive. That's not how democracy is supposed to work, is it?

4. Chris Bell ran a good campaign, but this might be the end of his political career. No, he's still not the best campaigner out there. Some people, pointing to his other losses in his career, will say that he's just a bad candidate. That's not true. He ran well this time around, and I sincerely appreciate it.
Unfortunately, I don't know where he would go from here. It's his second political loss in a row, and voters might want to try someone else if he runs again. But I really hope he finds one way or another to stay involved. He was always a good public servant, and I would like it to stay that way, if possible.

5. Will Democrats contest this race hard in 2010? This election was only to finish two years of a term, and Joan Huffman will have to defend her seat pretty soon. One of the largest questions on my mind, concerning this district, is how tough will Democrats pursue it? Will big-name Democrats looking to move up a spot take their chances, or will they wait until the next time around, when a potentially more favorable district map will be in place? If you have any thoughts, feel free to comment.

----

Once again, tonight was a disappointment for all of us. But the campaign was one where I was happy to see Chris Bell fighting for us some more. Thanks, Chris.

SD17 Election Results Thread: Huffman Wins

Michael Hurta — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:27:28 GMT

Secretary of State SD17 Election Page

Chris Bell DEM 7,024 38.16% 19,104 43.88%
Joan Huffman REP 11,378 61.83% 24,431 56.11%
Precincts Reported 211 of 211
Precincts 100%

7:39 pm (Michael): This is all early vote numbers. I'm not sure if these come from all five counties, though. The Secretary of State's pages for Galveston and Chambers counties do not show any votes in, but the early vote totals from Fort Bend, Harris, and Jefferson do not add up to the totals you see here.

7:45 pm (Michael): It turns out the Secretary of State's site made an error. Instead of Bell winning Harris County early votes 2-1, Huffman did.

8:28 pm (Michael): Galveston County's early votes are in, as well as some of their election day votes. Thanks to Byron LaMasters' comment, I now also understand that Chabmers County doesn't have any voters in the senate district. While Bell has gained a little since the last update, the numbers still do not look very promising.

8:49 pm (Matt): New numbers. Bell is closing the margins but the gap is still very large.

8:51 pm (Matt): Not to be too optimistic, but as of now, with 50% in, Bell is down approximately 3,300 votes. The percentage is about 11%, but the raw vote total is doable. This is my moment of cautious optimism.

8:58 pm (Michael): As more election-day results come in, Bell inches slowly closer to Huffman in this race. But that certainly doesn't mean anything, as a good chunk of the votes that came in are from the completed precincts in Jefferson county, which went about 84% Democratic in November and didn't change much here. Another chunk of votes are from Harris County, where Bell still isn't winning today's votes yet (although it is close.) If he doesn't win Harris County today I don't see how he can win the race. Brazoria County also finished their reporting, but they were expected to be strong for Huffman. She won there about 2-1.
More than half the precincts are in, and Bell still has a lot of ground to make up (at least percentage-wise.)

9:00 (Matt): This thing is over. With 64% of the vote in, there is no way Congressman Bell can catch Huffman. He is now 4,400 votes off and the friendliest boxes all seem to be in. The sad thing is, if it hadn't been for Ron Wilson and the Republican Party putting up a schill Bell probably would have won on November 4.

9:13 (Michael): Where is Fort Bend County? I'm not suggesting that there is much likelihood that Bell can come back out of Fort Bend, but the "Ds" didn't do horrible in those precincts on election day, and for all we know, the GOTV effort could have been heavier there? I think I remember calling a few numbers from that area. But, if there IS any way for him to come back, it would be a miracle from Fort Bend. I doubt it, but once again; I'd just like to see the results. I'm not sure what's taking so long.

9:15 (Michael): Right as I post the above update, Fort Bend starts giving us something to look at. Unfortunately, there's no help. Rather, quite the opposite.

9:51 pm (Michael): Only two precincts remain uncounted. This one's over, folks. I'll give some final comments on the day later tonight.

SD-17: Answer the Call for Chris Bell

Karl-Thomas Musselman — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:12:23 GMT

We're not done yet with Elections in Texas. With an expected 76-74 Republican controlled statehouse we have a chance on December 16th to help narrow the margin in the state senate by one more vote to 18-13. That race of course, pits former Gubernatorial nominee Chris Bell against GOP nominee Joan Huffman who were the two vote leaders in the open primary on November 4th.

Today we are announcing a weeklong effort in support of Chris Bell's runoff election. With Early Voting this week and Election Day next Tuesday, we're also announcing our second $1000 Burnt Orange for Bell online fundraiser. Last time, we went on strike and you reached that goal in one day. We're not striking this time, but I'm more than confident our community can raise $1000 this week for Bell. So if you haven't given (and it's the only race in town so you should), click here and donate to Bell today.

I'll start it off with $50 myself. Will you join me?

Here is an ad that the Bell campaign has released in the runoff election. You can view other ads and videos from the Bell campaign on their YouTube channel.

Democrats received 52.2% of the vote combined on November 4th, proving that this is a winnable district.

To that end, there are some things you can do to help.

Make GOTV Phone Calls. Click here to sign up.
Donate. Help us reach our $1000 BOR Reader Goal for the runoff.
Vote Early. If you are in the District, vote here this Mon-Fri.

Numbers to Think About

Karl-Thomas Musselman — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 14:00:00 GMT

A trend that should bother Republicans in Texas looking forward.

Seventy-six percent of young Hispanic vote preferred Obama, as compared to 67 percent of the overall Hispanic vote. That marks a 14-point rise in young Hispanic support for the Democratic candidate since the previous election, and a 10-point improvement with the Hispanic population overall.

As should this statistic.

No matter how you voted today, do you think of yourself as:
Percent of voters of the electorate
33% Democrat
34 Republican
33 Independent

I wonder if Rob Jesmer will retract his statement in a October 7th strategy memo for John Cornyn where he blew off polling that suggested the Texas electorate was divided into thirds.

It is widely accepted R's have +8 advantage.

Guess not anymore.

Presidential Vote in Dallas by House District

Karl-Thomas Musselman — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 02:17:34 GMT

The following is from a contributor, not myself.

I ran the presidential numbers by HD and here’s what I got:

Brief analysis: Miklos and Kent were certainly helped by Obama winning their districts. On the other hand Vaught had to win over some McCain voters in order to win re-election. England was able to ride the Dem straight ticket voting to 49% and then added his Grand Prairie muni supporters to it. Hitting Weigman on income taxes helped run up the score a bit. Romano’s (near) success in HD105 is explained somewhat by Obama winning HD105 by 4 points (the best margin for Obama in any white majority district in the county).

Also, HD108 is more winnable than Emil’s showing projects. He just didn’t run a professional campaign, and Dan Branch, unlike Linda Harper-Brown took the race seriously. Unfortunately, no one on our side took Bob Romano seriously either. He beat the party preferred candidate in the primary, and didn’t run a serious or professional campaign. It’s a shame as it’s (likely) a missed opportunity on our side. HD105 and HD108 should be the Dallas offensive targets in 2010 along with County Commissioner District 4 to give us a majority before redistricting (Obama won it by 55.5% to 43.5%). Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Elba Garcia will do the honors.

Texas Presidential Analysis: Obama Wins 28 TX Counties

Phillip Martin — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 05:48:58 GMT

Here's the list, courtesy of -- me.

I've found out and listed the 28 Texas counties where Obama beat McCain. I ranked based on the counties where he received the highest vote totals (and still won). I also have created (good suggestion KT!) a "vote margin" column, so you can see by how much Obama won in each of these 28 counties.

We're going to need to start thinking of how to target a statewide map if we want to win big in 2010. Looking at previous results is one step in the process -- but one we hope to continue developing going forward.

Three quick facts, and then the numbers:

Obama's vote totals in these 28 counties represent 55.5% of his ~ 3.5 million vote total.
Obama lost by 910,409 votes statewide -- which means based on his vote margin victory in these 28 counties, he lost the other 228 counties by a total of 1,374,010 votes. Wow.
His vote margins in Travis and Dallas County were nearly twice as great as any other county.

Now, on to the numbers. I hope this is useful and/or interesting. Enjoy!

County	Obama	McCain	Vote Margin
Harris	588,611 (50.5%)	570,143 (48.9%)	18,468
Dallas	424,468 (57.5%)	309,477 (41.9%)	114,991
Bexar	275,023 (52.4%)	245,932 (46.9%)	29,091
Travis	253,278 (64.1%)	136,671 (34.6%)	116,607
El Paso	121,589 (66.0%)	61,598 (33.4%)	59,991
Hidalgo	90,122 (69.1%)	39,614 (31.4%)	50,508
Cameron	48,401 (64.1%)	26,641 (35.3%)	21,760
Jefferson	44,854 (50.9%)	42,877 (48.6%)	1,977
Webb	33,435 (71,5%)	14,111 (28.0%)	19,324
Maverick	8,554 (78.2%)	2,316 (21.2%)	6,238
Starr	8,283 (84.5%)	1,488 (15.3%)	6,795
Val Verde	6,982 (54.5%)	5,752 (44.9%)	1,230
Jim Wells	6,683 (57.8%)	4,825 (41.7%)	1,858
Kleberg	5,251 (53.3%)	4,539 (46.0%)	712
Willacy	3,405 (69.6%)	1,454 (29.7%)	1,951
Duval	3,298 (74.8%)	1,076 (24.4%)	2,222
Zavala	3,263 (84.2%)	596 (15.4%)	2,667
Dimmit	2,692 (75.1%)	874 (24,4%)	1,818
Frio	2,405 (59.2%)	1,644 (40.5%)	761
Zapata	1,939 (67.7%)	918 (32%)	1,021
Brewster	1,819 (49.9%)	1,781 (48.8%)	38
Brooks	1,747 (75.7%)	556 (24.1%)	1,191
Reeves	1,605 (52.3%)	1,444 (47.0%)	161
Jim Hogg	1,336 (73.6%)	472 (26.0%)	864
Presidio	1,250 (71.3%)	489 (27.9%)	761
La Salle	1,051 (59.2%)	713 (40.2%)	338
Culberson	510 (65%)	267 (34.0%)	243
Kenedy	108 (53.5%)	93 (46.0%)	15
TOTAL	1,941,962	1,478,361	463,601

Senators John Cornyn and Kay Hutchison

TexasCowboy — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:40:42 GMT

The American people have spoken with an overwhelming and resounding voice electing Senator Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. Barack Obama won a historical 338 electoral votes, more than George W Bush in 2004 with 271 electoral votes and more than George W Bush in 2000 with 286 electoral votes.
Now is the time for Senator John Cornyn and Senator Kay Hutchison to show their integrity by not only offering bi-partisan support of a new Administration, but to recognize that 3,517,953 Texas voters need to be represented. It is important that all 4 major Texas metropolitan cities voted in favor of Senator Obama and should send a message to our Texas Senators to lay down their former political division of the Bush Doctrine and reach out to represent the whole of Texas, not just the 'Red' portion which these Texas Senators have divisively supported over all Texans in this great state.

I call on both Senator Cornyn and Senator Hutchison to get on board, work with the new President and with the new Congress to finally move beyond the same old Washington stalemate to help Texans and all Americans resolve the great challenges left by the 8 years of the Bush Administration.

It is time to support the rebuilding of the American infrastructure, to create American jobs and jobs for Texans, to responsibility end the Iraq war and bring our brave Texas soldiers home, to refocus on the war on terrorism in Afghanistan and to ensure Texans can access to affordable health care and to invest in our children and their futures. These are the issues the majority of Americans voted for; these are the issues that need your full support.

The Bush legacy will go down as the worst Administration in modern history. What will be the legacy of Senator Cornyn and Senator Hutchison? Texans will be watching.

A Testament to Dallas Democrats

Michael Hurta — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 08:21:44 GMT

I spent the night watching three Dallas county House races. Two of them we had prepared and expected to be competitive for the entire cycle: Kent-Goolsby and Miklos-Anderson. In defeating two incumbent Republicans, Miklos won by 533 votes and Kent won by well over 2,000 votes.

But then there was something else. Who is Bob Romano, again? Bob Romano is a former councilman from Irving. None of here knew much or anything of who he was before tonight. And who would have thought Irving would consider Democrats? He lost the final count of the night by 25 votes, and when the dust settles in the legal battles, it could be even less -- or even a victory.

But the dust that did settle last night showed us that the Dallas County Democrats weren't going to settle with county government. Going into the next legislative session, a clear majority of Dallas County's representatives will be Democrats.

I really cannot say how they've done it. I haven't been to Dallas to witness any of their campaigning. But it's clear that they have discovered a working plan for growth, and other metropolitan counties should be keen to follow it.

That's what the Democrats decided must be done in Harris County, and while Harris's seats were not swept by the Ds tonight, the blue team captured a significant majority. Harris county's representatives are already majority D, and maybe by 2010 the two counties can overwhelmingly win for our side so we can continue the change that will begin from this country's top office on January 20.