Tag: Texas

The tenth district of Texas was once a liberal bastion held by such notable Democrats like Lyndon Johnson and Lloyd Doggett until Tom DeLay’s redistricting scheme diluted the seat’s liberal bent by stretching eastward and incorporating some very conservative areas of the Greater Houston region.  Under the current lines, it has a PVI of R+13.  However, the trend is positive: while Gore scored only 34% in this district in the 2000 Presidential election, the Democratic performance improved to 38% four years later.

But the real story here is Republican Mike McCaul’s performance in the 2006 election.  After going unopposed by Texas Democrats in 2004, McCaul’s share of the vote sagged dramatically last year:

Mike McCaul (R): 55%
Ted Ankrum (D): 41%
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian): 4%

McCaul’s 55% was easily the weakest performance from a Republican incumbent in Texas other than Henry Bonilla.  On top of that, Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian Presidential candidate in 2004, outspent fightin’ Democrat Ted Ankrum by a hefty $400k margin and only walked away with 4% of the vote to show for it.  Numbers like that would indicate that the Democratic base is pretty solid in this district.

Now, what could be the source of McCaul’s weakness?  Is it possible that lingering resentment over the mid-decade redistricting carried over into 2006?  Looking at a few of the other beneficiaries of the scheme who were freshmen during the 109th Congress, Representatives Poe, Gohmert, and Conaway all improved on their 2004 margins of victory, although Poe & Gohmert faced sitting incumbents in 2004 and Conaway was unopposed last year.  Rep. Marchant (TX-24) did slip a little over the two years, but only by 4 points.  No matter how you slice it, 55% is a terrible performance for an incumbent Republican in a district that delivered 62% of its vote to Bush in 2004, even in a rocky year like 2006.  There is a weakness here, revealed by Ankrum’s challenge, that perhaps an aggressive challenge can exploit.

One such challenger has already stepped up: Democrat Dan Grant, an international development worker who has worked on USAID projects in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  (He even posted a diary here last week.)  I don’t know enough about Grant and his organization to tell whether he’d be a serious nuisance to McCaul, but he has managed to raise nearly $25k on Actblue in just a week or two, a year and a half from election day–and that’s more than one quarter of what Ankrum spent during his entire campaign.  He could be a guy–and this could be a district–worth keeping an eye on.

Race Tracker: TX-10

PS: There is another Democratic candidate in this race: Larry Joe Doherty.  He looks a little… flavorful.

Cross-posted from Burnt Orange Report

So the first quarter of fundraising is over and while the focus was mostly on the presidential candidates, let’s not forget about our incumbent members of Congress. In order to do that, I’ve compiled data for all 32 members in Texas and sorted them in four categories: 1Q Raised, 1Q Spent, Cash on Hand, and their Burn rate (calculated as spent/raised so the higher the number the more spent).

Click on the different tabs below to see the totals. Democrats in bold but all are marked by party. Al Green has not yet filed (not uncommon). If it’s not displaying below, click here.

Glad to see Chet (D), Lampson (D), and Ciro (D) high on that list, though I’m sure Lampson is still going to raise more knowing that he will have the toughest re-election fight in Texas. Six of the seven worst fundraisers were Republicans.

But what is up with Ron Paul (R) and Ralph Hall (R)? I know Paul is running for President (as a Republican, not Libertarian) but Hall pulled in a meager $2000. Hall is old (84) but hasn’t announced any plans to retire. Could this be a sign? He also used to be a Democrat until he switched parties after the DeLay redistricting forced him into a more Republican district. Might be be convinced to switch back? Under House rules he’d retain his seniority and seeing as he’s been in congress since 1981, that’s a lot of rank he could pull.

In terms of Cash on Hand, Austin’s Lloyd Doggett (D) is #1 with $1.95 million. But after that it’s mostly Republican, though some notably lower than 2 years ago like Lamar Smith (R) and Pete Sessions (R). That’s one nice side effect of the campaigns of John Courage and Will Pryor.

As to the burn rate- anything over 1 indicates more money being spent than raised. Texas Democrats did very well in this category holding 10 of the 14 best spots, holding on to their cash and building up their warchests.  Paul (R) is the worst burner but his attention is elsewhere so no surprise. Hall (R) takes the number 2 spot- further hints at potential retirement?

Anything else of note? Add your thoughts and analysis in the comments.

SurveyUSA has poll numbers out for the runoff election in TX-23. GOP rep. Henry Bonilla leads former Democratic rep. Ciro Rodriguez by a 7 point margin, 53-46.

The district as it was sampled is 59% white, and 36% hispanic. Bonilla takes 70% of the white vote and Ciro gets 72% of the Hispanic vote. You can look at the rest of the crosstabs in the link above, but I think that one says it. The majority is composed of white rural Texans who vote mostly for the GOP, and a Hispanic GOP incumbent captures a significant portion of the Hispanic minority. As for what would change this result, the crosstab to look at is party ID. The GOP has a small advantage here (43-39), but the incumbent captures 10% of Democrats and the challenger only 5% of Republicans and wins indepents (18%) by only 3%. A competent incumbent untainted by a major scandal is likely to produce similar numbers among partisan voters, so Ciro most likely will need to close the gap by appealing to independents. In the current electoral climate, a good Democratic candidate should be able to win the independent vote by more than 3%.