Texas Voting: Early Birds: D's outvoting R's More Than 3 to 1;

[Ilsa]

http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/burkablog/2008/02/early-birds-ds-outvoting-rs-almost-3-to.php

Saturday, February 23, 2008
Early Birds: D's outvoting R's More Than 3 to 1; Lead in 14 of State's Largest 15 Counties

posted by Paul Burka at 9:08 AM

Texas is experiencing a tsunami of early voting that has no precedent. I have linked to the Secretary of State's Web site, which provides day-by-day election totals and an archive of early voting history in previous elections. To give you an idea of what is going on, here are comparisons of the total votes cast after the first three days of early voting in the seven biggest counties for 2008, 2006, and 2004 primaries (not counting mail-in votes):

Republicans
Harris 04 -- 1,929
Harris 06 -- 1,194
Harris 08 -- 8,886

Democrats
Harris 04 -- 2,392
Harris 06 -- 1,379
Harris 08 -- 26,729

snip

Republicans
Collin 04 -- 1,244
Collin 06 -- 1,538
Collin 08 -- 4,805

Democrats
Collin 04 -- 503
Collin 06 -- 156
Collin 08 -- 6,845 (No, I not did not make a mistake.)
snip

(Collin County is that very conservative county north of Dallas. Has alot of mcmansions.)



From the comments section:

My cousin, who defended Bush until recently, has never in her 52 years voted for anyone but a Republican. This year she and her very straight-laced husband plan to vote for Obama.
She tells me she is tired of "all of them" and she's ready for change - and it will be all the way down the ballot.

[babylonsister]

1. Whoo hoooo! Go, Texas, GOBAMA! nt

[maseman]

2. OK let's be a little fair here

There's no reason for any R to go out and vote right now. If the role was reveresed and Obama had it locked up like McCain I wouldn't bother voting either probably.

The real news is back a few months ago when in Iowa and NH we saw Dems coming out early voting 2 or 3 to 1. That was really exciting.

[babylonsister]

3. This is TX and has been reliably republican for years; also,

Clinton thought she had the upper hand in this state. So, to me, this is news.

[Ilsa]

4. Some truth to that the GOP doesn't have much of a race, but still,

the total numbers of early voters is an exciting change.

snip

Ken said...
Those who doubt that Republicans would leave the party should ask themselves what would it take to lose voters if not a unpopular war? If you don't know a discouraged Republican you need to get out more.
However, I have to think that Republican turnout would be better if they had a real race. Huckabee's effort in Texas hasn't been that strong so far and I don't think an appearance on SNL is going to win over conservative Texans. snip

[blogslut]

6. grantcart

Has a thread that compares Democratic early voter turnouts to those of 2004. The increase is insane. I think in Dallas county, something like 950 showed up in 2004. 7,000+ showed up this year. And that's just one county. Those ones he cited were all like that.

The point is, there's more than just a presidential primary on the ballot. For one, we've got a certain Senator that just may lose his exalted office, come November.

:)

[Ilsa]

5. Another quote from the comments:

February 23, 2008 7:14 PM
texasinafrica said...
Is it the soccer moms with adjustable rate mortgages? Those Collin county numbers are unbelievable.

February 23, 2008 7:17 PM
Anonymous said...
They are not soccer moms with adjustable rate mortgages. They are Texans who are embarassed by what George W. Bush has done in Washington D.C., are mad that their highways are being sold to foreign interests and their their House of Representatives is being run as would be a 14th Century Duchy.

The Time Has Come. The Peasants are in revolt.

[babylonsister]

7. "The Peasants are in revolt" - I love it, and too true. And this explains

why rethugs are crossing the aisle. Wouldn't anyone in their right mind?

[nookiemonster]

11. A big K&R for my peasant bretheren!!

:)

n/t

[WolverineDG]

16. Lowe's & Home Depot report

sales of torches & pitchforks have grown exponentially. Local stores report new shipments should be arriving soon.

:hi:

dg

[babylonsister]

21. Ha!

:hi::hug:

[Lone_Star_Dem]

8. It's been such a wonderful experience to see Texas Democrats energized.

In the words of Emma Lazarus "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." And to add my own, "your disgusted, your betrayed, your angry and ignored."

The way the Democratic message has been being spread across the state has been good for us as a party here.

[TheDonkey]

9. Doesn't mean much. Democrat race is competitive. Rethugs race is over.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

12. Not true in the least

This isn't just a presidential primary. There are several local and state races on the Republican ballot as well. Many of these are very important local races such as, sheriffs races, county attorneys, constables, district attorneys, etc. The Republicans also have some contested appeals judges to vote on not to mention they have a national senatorial challenge taking place.

[ooga booga]

14. Yes, it's NOT just that the Republican race is essentially over.

What I think we're seeing in Texas right now is as someone colorfully mentioned "a peasant uprising." In other words, the large, independent middle of the electorate that normally doesn't seem to care much and usually doesn't even bother to vote is in fact wake and energized this time. One local political analyst said that Obama is the "jet fuel" in this phenomenon. People seem to be coming from across the political spectrum to vote in this Democratic primary. People who I NEVER thought would vote for a Democrat are telling me that they have or intend to vote for Obama.

[TexasObserver]

10. The Collin county numbers voting Democratic are truly significant.

[rainbow4321]

13. I voted in Collin County this weekend

and shared the story here yesterday....out of 8 people in my line who were asked "which party?", only 1 said repuke. Yeah, they could have been repukes purposely crossing over (as one DUer said in my thread yesterday) but I can't see local repukes making it so they couldn't vote for the local level county repukes just to mess up our national level primary election.
I'm looking forward to checking the TX SOS website each day to monitor the county Dem voter turnout..looks like they update it frequently.


Huckabee held a gathering here last week (blah), and 1,000 koolaiders showed up to see him. No doubt he did so since this is one of TX's reddest counties.

[WolverineDG]

15. What about Williamson County?

Still more red than blue there?

dg

[rainbow4321]

19. Here's the TX SOS page

It looks like it is updated daily with primary voter turnout totals. Lists the top 15 counties (in population):

http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/earlyvoting/index.shtml

Williamson 3,886 Dems

2,493 Repubs

That includes mail ins and in person votes. I imagine we will see a spike in numbers from all the counties when the page is updated tomorrrow given people have had this weekend to vote.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

20. .

In 2004, only 20 percent of primary voters in Williamson county participated in the Democratic Primary. So far this election, more than 60 percent of primary voters have been going Democratic.

http://eyeonwilliamson.org/?p=1924

This was from the 21st and I believe it only counts the first two days of early voting totals.

[TexasObserver]

23. Dayam! If we win Williamson County, it's OVER! That's an R stronghold.

[TexasLady]

17. I would like to post a link to my own county stats from early voting

It's 'this close to Crawford' kind of red. I was really surprised by the numbers, as Killeen is essentially Ft. Hood.
http://www.bellcountytx.com/BEV/CSTMR/Daily%20Early%20Voter%20Report.htm">Bell

[Zhade]

18. Cool, now when Clinton loses her DU goon squad can't claim R's won it for Obama.

NT!

[Stevepol]

22. Diebold report: R's outvoting Dems 3 to 1, amazing turn-out mostly born-again Christians.

[Scurrilous]

24. Great news!

:thumbsup:

[rainbow4321]

25. Latest stats from repuke heavy Collin County

For comparison purposes, the first number is from the early voting (primary) totals in 2004--I picked the last day so it would, I guess, be the total of county Dems who voted in person and mail ins for the whole early voting period in 2004:


Collin Democrat 2,874



Numbers posted after this past weekend:

(drumroll, please.....)

*****15,155******



Sidenote, repukes so far have a total of only 9,756 for early voting this primary.




http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/earlyvoting/2004/index.shtml



http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/earlyvoting/2008/feb24demo.shtml

[Tarheel_Dem]

26. omg....that is amazing & i hope it holds til november....

[lastliberalintexas]

27. Let me be a killjoy for just a second

People have to be careful when they look at primary votes in this state, since they can be incredibly misleading. Hardin County in SE Texas will have far, far more Dem voters than repubs because local races in that county are decided in the Dem primary and there are several hotly contested races there. But if Hardin County votes for any Dem for president in November, I will pull a Tucker Carlson and eat my shoe (in the form of a cake, of course).

Texas is stil like most other Southern red states, and local and regional elections are often still decided in the Dem primary. Just a note of caution for the time being.

I think we can take more comfort in the fact that the overall turnout rate has been substantially higher this year, but I wouldn't make much of the fact that we outnumber them 3 to 1 so far.