This is a daily feature through the early vote period of the TX primary.
The following links take you to spreadsheets based on the numbers from the Secretary of State's website that shows the early vote totals for the 14 counties with the highest numbers of registered voters:
Senator Clinton and Senator Obama both agreed to comment on these staggering turnout numbers for Burnt Orange Report. First, from one of Senator Clinton's campaign people here in Austin, Kamyl Bazbaz:
"We are very happy with the turn out numbers reported today. Our field program here has placed a heavy emphasis on early vote as we have held rallies with President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton near early vote locations, we are talking about it on the phones with supporters and holding visibility rallies with our supporters near sites across the state. Our supporters are very excited about Sen. Clinton and are looking forward to the 4th to caucus."
From Nick Kimball, a Texas spokesman for Obama:
We’re thrilled by the enthusiasm we’re seeing in Texas for Senator Obama’s vision for bringing real change we can believe in. Texans see that Barack Obama has specific ideas to bring universal health care to every American, to create good-paying jobs across the country, to end the Iraq war and to put forth an energy policy that protects our environment and ensures our long-term national security. And they’re seeing that Barack is the one candidate who can unite Democrats, Republicans and independents to actually get something done on these issues.”
Here are today's latest numbers:
TX Dem Primary Early Vote Through 9 Days (2/19 - 2/27)
County
Registered Voters
Total In-Person And Mail Voters '08
Total % Early Voting 2/27/2008
Total In- Person And Mail Voters '04
Total % Early Voting '04
Increase 2008 over 2004
Harris
1,804,641
117,752
6.52%
12,775
0.70%
104,977
Dallas
1,114,002
82,474
7.40%
8,373
0.73%
74,101
Tarrant
890,412
57,374
6.44%
6,992
0.82%
50,382
Bexar
867,084
70,363
8.11%
10,918
1.27%
59,445
Travis
541,315
63,817
11.79%
12,863
2.41%
50,954
Collin
378,730
24,507
6.47%
1,937
0.58%
22,570
El Paso
368,579
36,861
10.00%
11,343
3.22%
25,518
Denton
329,099
18,711
5.69%
1,434
0.50%
17,277
Hidalgo
287,988
37,734
13.10%
21,198
8.24%
16,536
FortBend
267,583
22,882
8.55%
1,256
0.55%
21,626
Montgomery
224,321
9,001
4.01%
830
0.42%
8,171
Williamson
206,334
14,830
7.19%
1,649
0.92%
13,181
Nueces
189,534
15,974
8.43%
6,382
3.34%
9,592
Galveston
180,288
12,991
7.21%
2,094
1.19%
10,897
Total
7,815,906
585,271
7.70%
100,044
2.23%
485,227
Here is the key points from today's numbers:
These numbers are only from the top 14 counties -- but in those top 14 counties, 485,227 more voters have early voted this year than at this same point in time in the 2004 elections.
585,271 voters in the top 14 counties -- statewide, it is much, much more. Texas is going to shatter all voting records this cycle -- its not even a prediction anymore.
My thanks to Senator Clinton and Senator Obama's campaign for commenting on these numbers.
Other 17% (presumably Edwards, Dodd, Richardson, and other presidential candidates who have suspended campaigns but remain on the Texas ballot) and Undecided 4%.
A mini-tempest is brewing about a video produced for Hillary Clinton asserting that the late Ann Richards would be campaigning for Clinton were she alive today.
I worked for Ann. I support Barack Obama. But I will not presume to intrude upon her children's lives and their disagreements about where their mother would have been in this race. And I would ask that those of us who still honor Ann simply stay out of it. In other words, I'm writing this hoping we don't translate our highly emotional opinions in this primary into an intrusion into Ann's family.
I don't know who she would be supporting. I do know Ann would be fiercely protecting her children (as politically experienced, tough and smart as they all are) at all costs. I want to honor that. Let's leave the issue with them.
Here's what the AP reports, in part:
The two sons of Ann Richards, the late former Texas governor, are objecting to an Internet video published by Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign that suggests their mother would have supported Clinton.
Clinton's campaign had permission from Richards' youngest daughter, Ellen, who said in a statement provided by the campaign that her mother was an "ardent feminist" who would be thrilled by her friend Hillary Clinton's candidacy.
"I believe that if my mom were alive today that she would be stumping across Texas and around the country supporting Hillary for president," her statement said.
Richards was governor from 1991-1995. She died in September 2006 at age 73. The two-minute video on Clinton's campaign Web site comes a week before the Texas primary and targets women voters in the state.
"So many women around Texas and America are saying, `Wish Ann was here, for us and for Hillary,'" a female voiceover says on the video.
"Today Ann would be asking all of us to make a statement. She would be traveling to every small town and big city in Texas, urging us all to take a stand, be counted, to make a difference, to make history," it says while a picture of Richards and Clinton appears on the screen. "This one's for Texas. This one's for our country. This one's for Ann."
But sons Dan and Clark Richards, partners at an Austin law firm, say nobody can know who the outspoken and opinionated former governor would have supported in the race between Clinton and Barack Obama.
"As her children, we never presumed to know her mind when alive and we are not prepared to make a claim as to who she would endorse or what she would do if she were still with us," they wrote in an e-mail last week. "We are not granting permission for her name to be used in advertisements on behalf of either candidate."
Let's allow the family to speak their minds, to differ politically, without presuming that whatever political beliefs we hold should be imposed upon them in this matter.
I know they have themselves willingly entered the political debate, and so they should be willing to publicly debate the matter. But I know how this kind of thing can become a public firestorm that burn the participants more than they've reckoned. Let's just not throw gasoline on them. Can we manage that?
I don't know what remaining neutral and quiet in this matter might mean for the future of the video. The family and their friends will figure that out. In the past, all of them have been kind to me. I'm just returning their kindness, hoping they can avoid the burns all of us have been inflicting on one another in the most interesting, heated and hard-fought primary since Ann's in 1990.
This is going to be a daily feature through the early vote period of the TX primary.
The following link takes you to a spreadsheet based on the numbers from the Secretary of State's website that shows the early vote totals for the 15 counties with the highest numbers of registered voters:
Follow those two links or look at the chart below. As a point of clarification, the comparison to 2004 is looking at early vote totals 7 days in to the early vote in 2004. Its the best comparison we can make:
TX Dem Primary Early Vote Through 7 Days (2/19 thru 2/25)
Top Fifteen Counties w/ Registered. Dem. voters
Registered Voters
Total In-Person And Mail Voters '08
Total % Early Vote '08
Total In- Person And Mail Voters '04
Total % Early Vote '04
Increase 2008 over 2004
Harris
1,804,641
81,843
4.54%
8,607
0.47%
73,236
Dallas
1,114,002
59,433
5.34%
5,461
0.48%
53,972
Tarrant
890,412
41,850
4.70%
8,607
0.47%
33,243
Bexar
867,084
50,467
5.82%
7,748
0.90%
42,719
Travis
541,315
44,607
8.24%
5,461
0.48%
39,146
Collin
378,730
17,895
4.73%
1,291
0.39%
16,604
El Paso
368,579
27,693
7.51%
8,860
2.51%
18,833
Denton
329,099
13,283
4.04%
982
0.34%
12,301
Hidalgo
287,988
29,440
10.22%
17,178
6.68%
12,262
FortBend
267,583
16,437
6.14%
829
0.36%
15,608
Montgomery
224,321
6,413
2.86%
585
0.29%
5,828
Williamson
206,334
10,423
5.05%
1,139
0.63%
9,284
Nueces
189,534
10,994
5.80%
4,593
2.40%
6,401
Galveston
180,288
9,126
5.06%
1,347
0.77%
7,779
Total
7,815,906
419,904
5.53%
72,688
1.59%
347,216
Once again, the key points to take away from this chart:
419,904 Democrats have already voted through Monday -- 347,216 more voters than at this time in 2004. I'm never going to stop being amazed by these figures.
Ken Molberg, a longtime friend and expert of all things Dallas County, pointed this out in the comments to yesterday's post:
Dallas County broke the '06 total vote yesterday, with over 57,000 early votes (not counting the mail ballots). We've looked at about 55,000 of those, and as best we can tell, virtually half have no '02, '04 or '06 primary history. Less than 3,000 have previous R primary history over the same period.
Harris County -- the third largest county in the United States-- is on pace to shatter the total vote from 2004 just with early voters. Harris County is working to turn blue in November, much like Dallas did in '06 and Travis did in '04, and this record turnout is sure to help that.
As they say at my alma matter, "Texas, Texas, yee-haw!"
A capable, experienced candidate well-liked by Democrats runs headlong into a mysterious, almost trans-political force whose supporters just won't listen to reason. Sound familiar?
I'm not talking about Hillary Clinton's confrontation with Barack Obama. I'm talking about former congressman and Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox's contest with Ann Richards in the brutal 1990 Texas Democratic gubernatorial primary.
I want to expand upon a post I wrote at MyDD yesterday. The observation is not meant necessarily as criticism of either Mattox or Clinton. It's just that the parallel is striking, and so is the reversal or roles. Clinton, trying to become the first female president, is confronted by a history-making opponent. But she's in the role of Mattox, who was confronted with a charismatic opponent trying to become the first female Texas governor in decades.
There are two other commonalities: Paul Begala and James Carville, who advised Mattox as they are advising Clinton. In both cases the candidate they served seemed so frustrated by the other-worldly popularity of their opponent that they quit taking their advice and confused angry outbursts with successful political strategy.
Mattox's biggest negative was his own negative attack on Ann. Hillary is finding the same to be true, I believe. The more she attacks Obama, the further she has fallen in the national and Texas polls. The parallel is made even more striking since Mattox has joined some of Ann's old friends and supporters and endorsed Clinton.
Election Day for the Texas primary is one week away, and Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign is staking the survival of her candidacy on winning the states of Ohio and Texas. Her ability to win Texas rests largely in her ability to turn out Hispanic Democrats – a demographic that helped deliver the State of California for her on Super Tuesday.
Last Wednesday, February 20, Sergio Bendixen visited the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (where I am currently studying) to discuss polling and the Hispanic vote. Though he couldn't speak about the specific strategies of the Clinton campaign in Texas, he did agree to a brief interview for Burnt Orange Report.
Bendixen has been a leading expert in the field of Hispanic polling for more than twenty years, and is currently President of his own public opinion research, management, and communications consulting firm, Bendixen & Associates. He has worked as the chief pollster for each of the four major Spanish-language television stations, including Univision and Telemundo. Here is my interview, along with some facts, figures, and examples he presented to my media and politics class:
Phillip Martin: What caused the “sleeping giant” that is the Hispanic electorate to wake up?
Sergio Bendixen: The main reason both in the 1990’s and in the last two or three years that Hispanics have started voting has to do with the demagogic reactionary way in which immigration was being talked about. Millions of Hispanics felt that if they did not become citizens and start voting that life would become difficult for them in America, and the anti-immigrant movement could get to the point where they would be asked to leave.
Bill O'Reilly: But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you're a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have.
Example 2: Michael Savage, July 5, 2007 (from MediaMatters)
Then there's the story of college students who are fasting out here in the Bay Area. They're illegal aliens and they want green cards simply because they're students. I don't understand what -- how this two and two adds up. I would say, let them fast until they starve to death, then that solves the problem. Because then we won't have a problem about giving them green cards because they're illegal aliens; they don't belong here to begin with.
Martin: How do Democrats keep Hispanics in their electoral column for years to come?
Bendixen: Hispanics learned a big lesson in 2000 and 2004 when they fell for the Bush “hugs and kisses strategy.” Now, I think, they’ve learned that the important things that effect their life –the economy, their access to good health care, financing for their public schools, a fair immigration policy – are much more important than having someone talk to you in Spanish or wave the Mexican flag in their commercials [as President Bush did in previous elections]. This has caused them to return to the Democratic Party.
The Democrats, however, must deliver on these issues. Whoever wins the primary must pass universal health care, must pass immigration reforms, and must end the war in Iraq. If they do that they will keep the Hispanic voters and maybe even gain some more.
Breakdown of Hispanic Vote by Political Party
in Recent United States Elections
Year
Democrat
Republican
1996
73%
21%
2000
62%
35%
2004
58%
40%
2006
69%
30%
2008*
75%
25%
Source: Bendixen & Associates.*Projected figures.
Martin: Senator Clinton performed well with Hispanics in California. Do you see any tangible differences between California Hispanics and Texas Hispanics?
Bendixen. I think that Texas Hispanic voters are a lot more interested in the military, in how we treat the soldiers that come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, and I think they are less interested in immigration policy than Hispanic voters in California. That has a lot to do with the makeup of the electorate in those two states. Almost one-half of Hispanics in California are immigrants, compared to only 18% in Texas.
Phillip's note: In his class presentation, Mr. Bendixen noted that there are two large segments of Hispanics -- those who are English-language dominant (AZ, TX, NM, CO, NV), and those who are Spanish-language dominant (CA, NY, FL).
Martin: Is the alleged generational split among Hispanics real, or over-hyped?
Bendixen: I would say it’s a lesser split than maybe among the general population where we are seeing huge numbers of young people getting involved in the process to support both candidates. Among Hispanics you see some of that, but to a lesser extent. The big differential is that between the immigrant voter and that of the native born voter.
Phillip's note: In his class presentation, Mr. Bendixen noted that it normally takes 10-15 years for new immigrants to become assimilated to the point where they become active members of the voting electorate. That's why, after the 1986 amnesty act, we saw Hispanic electorate participation jump in1996 and 2000. As demographics shift in the national census, we tend to think that explains the increase in Hispanic turnout -- when really you have to look at what may have happened 10-15 years ago to see if there's any true "electoral shifts" due to an immigration policy.
The following link takes you to a spreadsheet based on the numbers from the Secretary of State's website that shows the early vote totals for the 15 counties with the highest numbers of registered voters:
Follow those two links or look at the chart below (thanks to one of my teacher friends for putting these together for me) to get a broad view of the numbers:
TX Dem Primary Early Vote Through 6 Days (2-19 - 2-24)
County
Reg Voters
Total In-Person And Mail Voters
% Early Voting 2008
Total In- Person And Mail Voters 2004
% Early Voting 2004
Increase 2008 over 2004
Harris
1,804,641
66,756
3.70%
5,779
0.32%
60,977
Dallas
1,114,002
49,485
4.44%
4,442
0.39%
45,043
Tarrant
890,412
35,144
3.95%
3,926
0.46%
31,218
Bexar
867,084
42,198
4.87%
6,161
0.72%
36,037
Travis
541,315
36,890
6.81%
6,540
1.23%
30,350
Collin
378,730
15,155
4.00%
870
0.26%
14,285
El Paso
368,579
23,794
6.46%
7,253
2.06%
16,541
Denton
329,099
11,180
3.40%
761
0.26%
10,419
Hidalgo
287,988
25,564
8.88%
13,071
5.08%
12,493
FortBend
267,583
13,581
5.08%
568
0.25%
13,013
Montgomery
224,321
5,265
2.35%
432
0.22%
4,833
Williamson
206,334
8,708
4.22%
832
0.46%
7,876
Nueces
189,534
9,106
4.80%
3,697
1.93%
5,409
Galveston
180,288
7,563
4.19%
1,060
0.60%
6,503
Total
7,815,906
360,259
4.61%
55,392
0.72%
304,867
Here are the highlights:
360,259 Democrats have voted in the primary through Sunday -- 304,867 more than this point in time in the 2004 primary election. That is absolutely phenomenal.
In 2004, about 71,000 votes were cast in Harris County -- including the early vote and Election Day totals. Through Sunday, over 64,000 voters had voted early in Harris County -- I expect that they broke last year's mark today.
In 2004, about 51,000 votes were cast in Dallas County -- including the early vote and Election Day totals. Through Sunday, over 47,600 voters had voted early in Dallas County -- if they didn't break last year's mark today, they'll break it tomorrow.
The entire statewide turnout in the Democratic primary (early vote and Election Day) in 2004 was around 800,000. There's a chance -- not a certainty, but a chance -- that we will see more voters cast their ballots early this cycle than in all of 2004.
Texas Democrats are celebrating the election of a lifetime.
Not that this comes as a shock or a surprise, but Texas is on the verge of not mattering in the presidential primary March 4th... at least according to Bill Clinton in his interview with ABC News.
"If you vote early or you vote on March the 4th in the popular election, 65 percent of the delegates will be selected to the national convention. But 35 percent of the delegates for the national convention will be selected Tuesday night, March 4, at 8000 Percent Convention all across this state," Clinton told the crowd in Killeen this morning.
"The doors open at 7 and they close at 7:15. It would be tragic if Hillary were to win this election in the daytime and somebody were to come in at night and take it away."
Yes, believe it or not, Texas could simultaneously matter... and not matter. Aren't we special!
Of course, the Clintons are well on the way to not mattering in the Texas caucuses if Bill Clinton keeps informing people that "the door open at 7:00 and close at 7:15". This is mainly because the doors actually open at 7:15 and have no specific set time to close.
Bill Clinton's argument is that Texas is unfair because it has a caucus in addition to a primary, and, as the Clintons have been arguing, caucuses are less democratic than primaries. It's certainly true, caucuses give disproportionate weight to well-organized party activists over ordinary voters. But you know what gives even more weight to well-organized party activists over ordinary voters than the caucus system? Superdelegates. And the Clintons obviously have no objection to that.
Personally, I'm all for both the primary and caucus playing their respective and equally important roles for both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama. We're Texas and were not going to let this opportunity pass us by.
According to a release that was just forwarded to me from CNN:
7.6 million viewers tuned in to the CNN/Univision Democratic primary debate from the University of Texas at Austin last night, making it the second highest-rated primary debate in cable news history.
The debate drew:
7,576,000 total viewers 1,257,000 18-34 viewers;
2,812,000 18-49 viewers, and
2,986,000 25-54 viewers.
CNN.com had more than 764,000 live video streams yesterday, the site’s highest on record
About a week ago, I projected that Hillary Clinton would beat Barack Obama statewide by about 5%. But because of Texas' Byzantine delegate selection rules, I projected that Obama would come out ahead in the pledged delegate race, 98-95.
But many new polls of Texas have come out in the last few days. I used these polls to improve and update my model and my projections. My new projections, by LoneStarProject (LSP) region:
