2008 Texas Democratic Primary Results Map

There are three surprises once we break down the Texas results by county:

• The first in East Texas. I thought that there were enough African-Americans in this region that Obama would win several of these counties by moderate margins. But he won only one three or four of them. A net plus for Clinton.
• The second is the Valley in South Texas. Polls showed Obama losing Hispanics 66-33, but he ended up losing the by 70-30 or sometimes 75-25. In Brownsville, where Obama himself made two appearances, he lost 68-31. His campaigning made a difference, but only a little. Also a net plus for Clinton.
• The third is in the Hill Country surrounding Austin. Obama won not just the People's Republic of Austin and its affluent suburbs, but a number of small towns more than an hour outside of the city. But it was not enough to offset the other two surprises.

Democrats need to take a serious look at Rick Noriega's chances against John Cornyn. Yes, Texas is a big state, but polls have shown Clinton down by as few as 5 and Obama down by as few as 8. That's a small enough margin that Noriega could plausibly win. And who knows, maybe there will be reverse coattails where Latinos vote for Obama because Noriega's on the ballot (there's some evidence this happened in Colorado when Ken Salazar ran for Senate). Even if he doesn't win, tying down $20-30M of Republican funds might make it easier to compete in Oregon, Maine, Idaho, North Carolina, etc.

Comments

[Alex]

I'm excited to see more blogs talking about Rick and taking his candidacy seriously. His campaign is working hard already and I'm positive that money is going to pour in now that the primary is over. I think it's important for Noriega to have Obama on the ballot more than the other way around though. Obama's chances of winning Texas in the general are slim, but people will still come out to vote for Democrats here if he's the nominee.

[ikl]

Also a Obama-Noriega ticket in Texas probably gets both blacks and Hispanics out to vote for Democrats in greater numbers than usual. Which helps both candidates. I don't think that Texas matters much for Obama - if he wins there then it is landslide. It is not realistic to think that the Democrats are going to take the Kerry states (give or take a few purple states) + Texas. Same for Idaho and probably North Carolina (though that might be closer to turning blue).

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

ikl: I agree, in the sense that if Obama has a shot at Texas, he has a shot at otehr states where demographics are more favorable.

[John]

With respect to East Texas, I think Jefferson County, which contains Beaumont and Port Arthur, is the only one with a large enough black population for that to be able to be the dominant element among primary voters. The rest of east Texas is full of the kind of white voters least likely to vote for Obama, and there aren't enough black votes to counteract them.

I'd say Clinton's enormous margins in South Texas were what cost Obama the election, plus possibly the "Rush effect", with conservatives in Texas voting for Clinton. Also, note how badly Obama did in West Texas. South Texas is certainly what hurt the most in the delegates. Clinton probably picked up about +6 delegates from her landslides there.

[Brian]

Awesome map.

Can you do one for the states in the US overall that have voted thusfar? I think that such a map would be incredibly more revealing than the current ones that everyone uses.

The US map should not color-code a virtual tie (e.g., Nevada, Missouri) the same way as a blowout.

Your map is better. I think if you do one and it gets out there, you might very well be responsible for the networks rethinking how they do theirs. And this would convey much more meaningful information.

[Jacob]

Your map is wrong. Armstrong, Hansford, & Roberts counties shouldn't be colored for Clinton. Those three counties had no primary, so there won't be any results from them.

[Paul]

This map confuses me. I know Clinton won a bunch of rural counties, but it looks like Obama won everywhere --- all those counties are the purple shade of black, right?

Great maps, Nick, but why are you using two nearly indistinguishable colors (a purple shade of black and a green shade of black) to indicate the two most extreme results (Obama wins big and Clinton wins big)? I have no trouble seeing where Clinton/Obama won narrowly, but it's hard to tell where they each won big.

Please, please, please, start using a coloring scheme that makes sense.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

What! No Primary?!?! I just sort of interpolated from neighboring counties ... I thought they were late in their returns.

Paul: The thing is, there's never a time where Dark Purple is next to Dark Green. So one can work it out. I suppose I could have fewer gradations, which I might do at some point.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

Brian: I have maps for most states that have voted, we should put it up on the side bar.

John: the reason I thought he'd do okay in the rest of East Texas is that there are so few Democrats. I thought that in those areas "Democrat" was almost synonymous with "not white". I blame Rush Limbaugh.

[Jacob]

In Texas, if a county doesn't a Democratic party chair in the county, then there is no Democratic primary in that county. The opposite is also true. If there is no Republican party chair in a county, that county doesn't have a Republican primary.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#TX

Look on the Republican side where there are even more counties with no primaries.