03.05.08
What Happened Yesterday In Williamson County? – Initial Impressions
It’s too early to tell what to take away from yesterday’s primary results. It’s going to take a while to make sense of exactly what happened. EOW’s early reactions will be below, as well as some observations from election day. It looks like, including early voting, there were almost twice as many voters in the Democratic Primary as in the Republican. Taking those numbers apart and trying to determine who and why will be the topic of much speculation, here and many other places, between now and November.
First observations from working election day. There are a whole bunch of people who don’t understand the primary election process. And I’m not even talking about the caucus, which most are just clueless about. People were asking why they can’t split ticket vote, “I’ve done it before”. Obviously someone who’s never voted in a primary before and there were tons of them. “Where’s the Independents’ primary?”, is another question that was spouted many times. “I’m a registered Republican can I still vote in the Democratic Primary and vote for who I want in November?” It’s clear that many of our citizens – no matter political party, race, gender, etc… – have no idea, are just plain ignorant of how elections work, and it’s sad.
It will take a while to pore over the results in Williamson County to see what the huge turnout numbers really mean. We can assume, as was expected, that there were quite a few die-hard Republican voters that crossed over in Williamson County to vote in the Democratic Primary. Exactly how many we may never know. An educated guess can be make once we get a look at who voted Democratic and their voting history. And still even then it’ll be hard to tell how many were sabotaging and how many are just flat-out disgusted with Republicans and their inability to govern.
For an initial analysis a look at the difference between the votes cast in the down ballot county races on the Democratic side versus those cast for President, might give us a starting point. (Which would be around 14,000. Looking at total votes for President and one of the contested SC races). To get a gauge of the number of Republicans that disgraced themselves yesterday. But that number is probably way too high. As stated above there were many first time voters to a primary, and they were there for one race and one race only, no matter the party. Too many times to count the question was asked if they have to vote the entire ballot – which any informed voter knows, is no. This is all said by someone who is completely aware that democracy is rarely neat and tidy.
A microcosm for what took place yesterday in Williamson County might be the vote totals in the Precinct 1 County Commissioner races. On the Democratic side Mike Grimes got 6,611 votes and on the Repubilcan side Birkman and Laukhuf combined for 4,643. Where there were contested races on the GOP ballot it was probably more likely that the base GOP voter would stay home and not crossover to sabotage. And here the Democrat Grimes got almost 2,000 more votes.
In HD-52 the numbers looked like this. Democratic candidate Diana Maldonado received 16,827 votes and the four GOP candidates combined for only 10,344. Again another race where it would seem the GOP faithful would be more likely to stay home. Here Democrat Maldonado got almost 6,500 more votes than all the GOP candidates combined. Back to that voter ignorance for a second. It would be interesting to know how many GOP voters aren’t aware that if they didn’t vote in the GOP primary yesterday they will be unable to vote in the runoff for HD-52. The Texas Secretary of State explained it like this in 2004, and a more recent analysis called the primary runoff “..an extension of the primary“. Sorry GOP sabateuurs, haha!
While I think these numbers point to a more Democratic, and therefore better, future for Williamson County there is no reason to rest. Again, Democrats haven’t won anything yet. Getting as many of these new voters involved and then keeping them engaged until November will be the surest way to get Democrats elected in Williamson County in the general election.
Jaime McCain Lynn said,
March 5, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Certainly, it will be interesting to determine to what extent the voters consisted of “cross-over” Republicans intent on screwing up the process, and those genuinely fed up with their current party.
That so many Republicans purportedly felt so compelled as to cross party lines to manipulate the outcome of their opponent’s race, rather than participate in the outcome of their preferred party’s nominees, is a distinct sign of weakness within the Republican party and its members.
Clearly, they have so little faith in the viability of their own party’s political stances (after 8 years in power), and in the strength of that message through their nominees, that they instead must attempt to muddy the outcome of the opposing party’s elections.
The Republicans may very well be in a much more pathetic state than one might have thought.
wcnews said,
March 5, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Thanks, that’s great analysis to add to this topic. Entirely true that if they “had faith” in their candidates they wouldn’t fell the need to play dirty tricks. But after all weakness and lack of faith is what makes them “die-hard” Republicans.
deh said,
March 6, 2008 at 11:49 am
That’s great cheerleading, but don’t forget that crossing lines in the primary can be the rational choice. Suppose you’re a Republican who is interested, as apparently many people routinely are, only in the outcome of the Presidential election. And if you look at the Republican ballots, there’s not much contested: e.g. a weak opponent for Cornyn and a court of appeals race; the most exciting thing above the local level is the HD-52 race and of course that doesn’t apply if you’re in HD-20.
So the rational choice for such a Republican is to vote in the Democratic primary. Note that this the rational conclusion regardless of how much faith you have in your party, your predictions about the outcome in November, or how you intend to vote in November. (And Democrats should do the same thing when the situation warrants: if you think otherwise, then what you really should be saying is that you think Texas should have closed primaries. It’s poor form to paint someone making use of the openness of the primaries as either malicious or a turncoat.)
Democrats may find the numbers to be good for rallying purposes but their use for predictive purposes is limited.
wcnews said,
March 6, 2008 at 1:24 pm
You sure are doing a lot of “rational”izing. Those that voted as you say “rationally”, as we’ll assume you did, did nothing wrong or irrational, don’t worry.
Don’t overestimate the effectiveness of crossover voting. Crossover votes probably had little if any effect on the outcome. You can read this post for all the skinny on that. That is if your intent was to give Clinton a big win in Texas. Especially looking at the delegate count which Obama will likely end up winning. If so many of you showed up to pick your candidate, you should have caucused too, to finish the job.
Take out 10% of the total D vote (2.9 millioin) and the Democratic turnout was still much higher than the R turnout (1.4 milion). And as the post above cited it looks like the GOP vote in the D primary was pretty evenly split too. No one suggested closed primaries.
“Network exit polls showed about 9 percent of the Democratic primary turnout was self-identified Republicans, who cast 52 percent of their ballots for Obama.”
And your also leaving out the fact that in many areas of Texas over the last 15 or so years there’s been no reason, even for Democrats, to vote in the Democratic Primary and this year there was. Many of them are coming home.
The numbers were very good for Democrats and my hope is that all Republicans continue to try and rationalize them away.
Eye on Williamson » More From Tuesday said,
March 6, 2008 at 3:11 pm
[...] yesterday’s post I left out the good things about election day. How nice it was to see so many people, regardless of [...]
deh said,
March 6, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Ha! Yeah, I’m a crossover Republican who voted for Clinton; I’m trying to discount the high Democratic primary turnout because I just can’t face the music that Wilco might become a two-party area. You caught me.
Sorry, I should have made this clear: the thing that popped out at me wasn’t the analysis as such, it was the purported mischief: “sabotage”, “muddying the outcome”, etc. I don’t see the useful purpose in saying this. Yes, there undoubtedly was some mischief going on, but how much? It’s hard to say. But even if you knew how much (and maybe the HD-20 vote is a clue?), you shouldn’t assume that Democrats will capture the rest of the votes in November. I’m not saying that you are, I’m saying that’s where the mischief vs faithlessness assumption will take you; that’s not in Democrats’ best interest and it’s uncivil besides, not that that seems to matter much any more.
wcnews said,
March 6, 2008 at 10:34 pm
I’ll let Jaime Lynn speak to the comments of mischief and faithlessness since they were his.
I think the HD-20 race was more about a better known candidate (Jim Dillon) that gets his name in the paper a lot, and another candidate (Leonard Surratt) that was completely unknown.
I assume nothing and try to be civil.
FedUp said,
March 7, 2008 at 9:44 am
wcnews…….I’m going to try and be civil, but I don’t like being labeled for not understanding the elcetion process. I didn’t understand it in Highschool and I’m more confused today. I’m not IGNORANT, just CONFUSED. Yes, it is sad, but getting lost in translation, I decided voting was all I needed to do. At least I do do that.
deh…….. I vote “I”, but if I had to pick a party in Williamson County, at this time, it would be “D”. A few years back I voted “R” and for the wrong “R” according to the WCGOP Polictical Machine. Paid for it with a career. Yes, you read that right. Polictical Retalation is a given in Williamson County and it is called Sudden Death! Just ask anyone working for the County, and under their breath will tell you it is so. We have seen their “mischief, dirty tricks and more so then ever, sabotaging ways. WCGOP Polictical Machine will sabotage what and who ever is a threat to their power.
JLynn……..my” family”, and there are a bunch of us, quietly support you and your bid for County Attorney. In fact, we support anyone running aginst the WCGOP Political Machine. We want to once again, after so many years of suppression, be able to be seen and heard with out “Sudden Death”.
wcnews said,
March 7, 2008 at 9:55 am
Ignorant may have been the wrong word but all it means in the context that I used it, is that one is lacking knowledge. I was not trying to say that a person is stupid, just confused, or not knowing how the process works. I was not trying to “label” anyone, just point out that there are many who are not knowledgeable of how the election process works. If you’ll look in my subsequent post I pointed out what a great opportunity it was to teach and how great it was to have so many that were willing to learn. Voting is a huge part but also talking to and attempting to inform family, friends, and neighbors about issues, candidates, etc.. helps quite a bit too.
FedUp said,
March 7, 2008 at 11:17 am
Thank you for clearing that up. I so DO appreciate a site that allows you a chance to voice an opinon regardless if it’s not the same and not be considered a trader like another site. Even if you are an “I”.
Eye on Williamson » Texas Blog Round Up - Year End Edition said,
December 30, 2008 at 8:56 am
[...] this year the election took up much of our time on the blog. From candidate filings, to the massive turnout for the Williamson County Democratic Party primary and convention, all the way through to electing the first Democratic state representative in [...]
Dig Deeper Texas » TPA End of Year Roundup said,
December 30, 2008 at 9:23 am
[...] this year the election took up much of our time on the blog. From candidate filings, to the massive turnout for the Williamson County Democratic Party primary and convention, all the way through to electing the first Democratic state representative in [...]
Best Of Texas Progressive Alliance Blogging In 2008 « Texas Liberal said,
December 30, 2008 at 10:32 pm
[...] year the election took up much of our time on the blog. From candidate filings, to the massive turnout for the Williamson County Democratic Party primary and convention, all the way through to electing the first Democratic state representative in [...]