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Texan's Early Voting

"Don't forget to vote — on Oct. 15!" Jim Solis, a Democratic state representative in Texas, said at a rally of factory workers in Harlingen, at the southern end of his state, the other day. Oct. 15 is the first day Texan's may vote.

Don't put too much weight into polling of Texas this year. George Strong has a couple of good posts concerning the lack of trust in any poll numbers that come out on the Texas races, here, and here. The dynamics of turnout are just unpredictable; minority turnout, white prejudice, and early voting being three issues that make the outcome vague.

Early Voting Puts Many Candidates in Early Overdrive provides a look at how this is changing GOTV efforts. We'll have to see how this plays out in Texas, my guess is that the early GOTV effort, led by Cisneros management and Sanchez money, is potentially ground-breaking. I would expect that Sanchez, and the GOP, already have stronger than normal GOTV efforts happening.

I'm going to re-play some related comment-posting on Texas vote that went on down thread, for the general readership:

Posted by: Mr. Moderate on October 14, 2002 05:00 PM
Texas, at the current time, is a heavily Republican state. The reason why Kirk was supposed to have a good shot at the win is because of some kind of black-hispanic mass Democratic vote, and that just simply isn't going to happen.

The black side of the equation is motivated enough to vote, since Kirk has an at least remote chance of winning his race. The hispanic side (Governor's race) of the equation is where the dream ticket breaks down. The two key problems are as such:
(1) The Hispanic candidate (Sanchez) has little chance of winning.
(2) Hispanic voters are not fiercely motivated to vote against Cornyn, Perry, or Republicans in general.

Turnout among hispanics may be slightly higher than usual, but they're not going to be voting straight ticket Dem, nor will there be enough of them to push Kirk over the top.

Posted by: Precinct1233 on October 14, 2002 09:46 PM
The Hispanics are, in fact, fired up, and they are going to be straight-ticket Democratic voters. African-Americans already vote straight-ticket Democratic in Texas (as elsewhere). Since the Democrats can generally depend on a roughly 35 percent share (even with terrible candidates) of the Anglo vote, all we need to win is a decent turnout from Hispanics.

As I recall, there is only one Republican Congressman from a majority-Hispanic district in the state, and that's Bonilla in District 23. Until this election, his district was barely majority-Hispanic, as I recall. This year, the district population outside his home base of San Antonio's Bexar County finally exceeds the district population inside it, and his opponent is from Sanchez's home town of Laredo. Want to predict how those (mostly new) voters are going to go, and how many of them will turn out? Sanchez will spend what it takes to acquire every single Democratic vote, and if you think that having a Hispanic candidate on the ballot for Governor is not a big thing within the Hispanic community, think again. They may not be "motivated to vote against Perry, Cornyn" and the rest, but they're certainly motivated to vote FOR Sanchez.

In Dallas County, the last big Republican stronghold in the state, the ballot this year is 19" long and printed on both sides. First-time voters are going to fill in the "Democratic" or "Republican" ovals (it's a scan ballot) and go home (the only constitutional amendment on the ballot is obscure and doesn't affect us locally). Since the Sanchez and Kirk campaigns are literally busing their verbally-committed voters to the polling place, there are going to be a LOT of Hispanic and African-American straight-ticket votes. And, we're going to see a historic number of African-American votes, since there has not been a AA Senatorial (or any other statewide) candidate in my recollection. The Republicans do have a statewide AA candidate downballot, but that race has gotten zero publicity, and he barely won their primary.

In Houston, where they use touch screens, the process of voting individually will be lengthy, with Sanchez not appearing until the third screen, after the Senatorial and Congressional races. Hispanics have never supported the Republicans as a party here, only Bush as an individual (God knows why).

In Denton County, another large source of Republican votes, Dick Armey is off the ballot and his son was defeated in the primary for his Congressional seat following a scandal fed by reporting from the Dallas Morning News, which is normally a reliable conservative voice. Dick's rabidly-conservative voters don't like the Republican candidate, whom they (reasonably) suspect of being a stealth Democrat, and they may well stay home. Dick's obvious (and failed) attempt at retaliation against DMN probably further turned off Republican voters and fired up Democrats.

I don't think you comprehend the effect the continuing assault via mail, radio and TV is having on Rick Perry's race. Even Republicans are having their insurance canceled, everybody's homeowner rates have doubled in 3 years, and it is a HUGE problem here. Perry has yet to articulate a coherent response to the problem, and he has taken a fortune from the insurance companies in campaign contributions. Everybody here (D and R) understands that if you take money from someone, you are influenced, all the lying about it by campaigns notwithstanding (why else would they give it?).

Nationally, the biggest arrow in the Republican quiver has been that they outspent Democrats by 50% or more, even into 3 and 4 times, particularly in Texas. When you take that tool away by recruiting a Democratic candidate who is willing to spend what it takes, Republicans do substantially less well. Further, Sanchez is spending money all over the party, at all levels of the organization, so there is more money flowing through local groups than there has been in twenty years. If votes follow cash (and they do, although we may well approach diminishing returns by the time this is over), the Democrats will carry all the statewide races, any Congressional race that is remotely competitive, and a slew of county-level seats. A rising tide lifts all boats, and the tide of Sanchez money is washing all over the shore.

Posted by: Jim Dallas on October 16, 2002 02:31 PM
The Sanchez campaign in Texas is working on damage control over the latest Zogby polls down here... Here are the comments sent out on the Sanchez e-newsletter today:

Tony Closing In On Perry
As we saw in the primary, poll numbers can be all over the board. Our internal numbers are showing that this is a very tight race. The momentum is clearly with us and Tony will continue to move forward and ahead. Tony's messages are resonating with Texans, especially his solutions to the state's insurance crisis. The trend is clear - as voters find out more about Rick Perry and his record, the less they like him. Tuesday, Harvey Kronberg, editor of Texas's leading political newsletter the Quorum Report, criticized a recent poll done by MSNBC/Zogby saying it's too tough to believe that Sanchez won't do as well as Garry Mauro in his bid against George W. Bush in 1998. He reported:

"As one observer noted, those numbers suggest that Sanchez will not do as well as Garry Mauro did against George W. Bush in the 1998 gubernatorial battle. In that battle, Bush spent $17 million to Mauro's $1.5 million. Obviously, the financial tables are turned in this election. Plus, the Mauro vote clearly represents the bottom of the base vote among voters that were hard core Democrats.

"Second, while the poll is certainly welcome news to the Perry Campaign, their television ad war does not corroborate that their own numbers show the Governor pulling away so dramatically. If the race were really in the can as Zogby suggests, Perry would go positive. Instead, he is going toe to toe with Sanchez on attack pieces."

"So what could explain a 22 point spread between Zogby's results and those of Democratic pollster Paul Maslin? Maslin says that his assumptions of 11% African-American and 17% Latino turnout track historical proportions.

"One person close to the Sanchez Campaign opined that the average pollster has a set number of dollars to use -- say $15,000. When the money starts running out, pollsters adjust and weight their results to compensate for unanswered calls or incomplete interviews. In other words, you get $15,000 worth of information.

"Needless to say, if Sanchez is successful or the race is as close as Maslin says it is, pollsters, politicos and media types in Texas are going to have to fundamentally rethink the way they reach minorities."

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