whiterock said:

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ATL Bear said:

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whiterock said:

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JXL said:

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whiterock said:

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EX: Exit polling is clear that Threat To Democracy and Abortion were huge issues with thoe who voted.

Are those key issues with voters at large? Was all the polling about inflation and economy wrong?

no.

Remember what I said many times: a pollster has to poll the people who actually vote.

A majority of voters think inflation and the economy ARE the big issues.
but those voters didn't show up and vote.

A smaller number of voters think abortion and threats to democracy are the big issues.
but those voters are who showed up and voted.


Every election is a base election.
If you do not turn out your own base, the independents don't matter a damned bit.

---

You can't win elections with just your base. Nominating Trump might fire up his base of support, but he would be unlikely to pull enough support from outside of his base to win.

---

The results from last night directly refute that conclusion.

SOME elections are choice elections, where wooing independents is the key.
SOME elections are base elections, where there isn't much middle ground and victory lies in turning out your base.

As long as we remain an evenly divided electorate, building a strategy of chasing 3% of the voting public least likely to vote is the road to oblivion. If you cannot fire up your own base to come boiling out to vote, you are not going to inspire independents to come boiling out to vote either.

Democrats campaigned solely within their base. They spoke primarily to the J6 faithful and the abortion on demand faithful....and they got a bigger turnout of their base than Republicans did.

---

You couldn't be more wrong. The Kemp/Walker break is a classic showing of how independents will actually vote multi party, and can be wooed to candidates. It also shows that even semi-partisans will split tickets. Look at the ratio breaks in districts of Republican pick ups in the House. Run better candidates. Don't drag them down with political baggage like Trump.

---

Moderate Republicans are fickle, too. Oso and Sam will throw their vote away 3rd party on principle then blame others when it lets Dems win. But if we attend to their concerns, we lose more votes in our own base than we gain in the middle. That's a dynamic proven over and over again. Oz is an example - the kind of moderate that's supposed to win purple states. Only he didn't. You win purple states like Perry and DeSantis did - by defeating liberal ideas and turning the date RED.

And before we cite "Trump baggage" as responsible for last night, it must be noted that the single best outcome of the night came from a candidate plucked from obscurity by a Trump endorsement, a candidate who by any measure was the most Trump-esque of them all. He's not the "anti-Trump" that your argument implicitly presumes. He's Trump 2.0, an apparently more formidable variant of the original strain.

And while we're on GA, they have almost as bad a "arrogant moderate" dynamic as AZ. It's not like Perdue or Loeffler were great big throbbing MAGA-maniacs. Quite a bit of spin going on to blame deficiencies in the GA GOP on Trump. I spent a number of hours around a campfire with a GA businessman donor in aftermath off the 2020 GA Senate debacle. Wonderful thoughtful fellow who like many of the type think the secret to success is stifling the GOP base. That is not what DeDantis did. Quite the opposite - poking Disney in the eye, reliving woke prosecutors of their duties, etc…..

The argument for Desantis is that he's simply better at Trumpism than Trump.

It's a hard argument to refute.

---

Prior to the election, you made the case for a red wave.
Here are some of your points:
Highest inflation in 40 years
Worst border crisis in history
Most unpopular president since Truman (Biden approval around 40%)
75% of voters say country is going in the wrong direction
Worst crime wave since the 90s

Yet voters looked at the Trump recruited candidates and said "no". Why?

Osodecentx said:

---

whiterock said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

JXL said:

---

whiterock said:

---

EX: Exit polling is clear that Threat To Democracy and Abortion were huge issues with thoe who voted.

Are those key issues with voters at large? Was all the polling about inflation and economy wrong?

no.

Remember what I said many times: a pollster has to poll the people who actually vote.

A majority of voters think inflation and the economy ARE the big issues.
but those voters didn't show up and vote.

A smaller number of voters think abortion and threats to democracy are the big issues.
but those voters are who showed up and voted.


Every election is a base election.
If you do not turn out your own base, the independents don't matter a damned bit.

---

You can't win elections with just your base. Nominating Trump might fire up his base of support, but he would be unlikely to pull enough support from outside of his base to win.

---

The results from last night directly refute that conclusion.

SOME elections are choice elections, where wooing independents is the key.
SOME elections are base elections, where there isn't much middle ground and victory lies in turning out your base.

As long as we remain an evenly divided electorate, building a strategy of chasing 3% of the voting public least likely to vote is the road to oblivion. If you cannot fire up your own base to come boiling out to vote, you are not going to inspire independents to come boiling out to vote either.

Democrats campaigned solely within their base. They spoke primarily to the J6 faithful and the abortion on demand faithful....and they got a bigger turnout of their base than Republicans did.

---

You couldn't be more wrong. The Kemp/Walker break is a classic showing of how independents will actually vote multi party, and can be wooed to candidates. It also shows that even semi-partisans will split tickets. Look at the ratio breaks in districts of Republican pick ups in the House. Run better candidates. Don't drag them down with political baggage like Trump.

---

Moderate Republicans are fickle, too. Oso and Sam will throw their vote away 3rd party on principle then blame others when it lets Dems win. But if we attend to their concerns, we lose more votes in our own base than we gain in the middle. That's a dynamic proven over and over again. Oz is an example - the kind of moderate that's supposed to win purple states. Only he didn't. You win purple states like Perry and DeSantis did - by defeating liberal ideas and turning the date RED.

And before we cite "Trump baggage" as responsible for last night, it must be noted that the single best outcome of the night came from a candidate plucked from obscurity by a Trump endorsement, a candidate who by any measure was the most Trump-esque of them all. He's not the "anti-Trump" that your argument implicitly presumes. He's Trump 2.0, an apparently more formidable variant of the original strain.

And while we're on GA, they have almost as bad a "arrogant moderate" dynamic as AZ. It's not like Perdue or Loeffler were great big throbbing MAGA-maniacs. Quite a bit of spin going on to blame deficiencies in the GA GOP on Trump. I spent a number of hours around a campfire with a GA businessman donor in aftermath off the 2020 GA Senate debacle. Wonderful thoughtful fellow who like many of the type think the secret to success is stifling the GOP base. That is not what DeDantis did. Quite the opposite - poking Disney in the eye, reliving woke prosecutors of their duties, etc…..

The argument for Desantis is that he's simply better at Trumpism than Trump.

It's a hard argument to refute.

---

Prior to the election, you made the case for a red wave.
Here are some of your points:
Highest inflation in 40 years
Worst border crisis in history
Most unpopular president since Truman (Biden approval around 40%)
75% of voters say country is going in the wrong direction
Worst crime wave since the 90s

Yet voters looked at the Trump recruited candidates and said "no". Why?

---

yup. A big FU to Trump. Haul ass Trumpy Dumpty!

How is it so many congressional races are still 'undecided' ?

Osodecentx said:

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Latest Trump post

Now that midterms are over, and a success…

NewsCorp, which is Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and the no longer great New York Post (bring back Col!), is all in for Governor Ron DeSanctimonious, an average REPUBLICAN Governor with great Public Relations, who didn't have to close up his State, but did, unlike other Republican Governors, whose overall numbers for a Republican, were just averagemiddle of the packincluding COVID, and who has the advantage of SUNSHINE, where people…

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Trumps a member of Sicem 365?

4th and Inches said:

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Osodecentx said:

---

Latest Trump post

Now that midterms are over, and a success…

NewsCorp, which is Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and the no longer great New York Post (bring back Col!), is all in for Governor Ron DeSanctimonious, an average REPUBLICAN Governor with great Public Relations, who didn't have to close up his State, but did, unlike other Republican Governors, whose overall numbers for a Republican, were just averagemiddle of the packincluding COVID, and who has the advantage of SUNSHINE, where people…

---

Trumps a member of Sicem 365?

---

Formerly posted as OLDBEAR

TEXAS

2022 General Election - Preliminary Analysis

I hope everyone got some rest since Election Night. I spent the evening watching election results from my office at home. In years past, I would go to election night watching parties and stay up until all hours of the morning waiting on results. Not this year for a variety of reasons:

• I have come to accept that I can go to sleep on election night and the results will still be there in the morning (shocking, I know).
• When I watch results with other people, they want to focus on other things than what I want to focus on.
• To quote Sergeant Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon, "I'm too old for this…"
• Most importantly, I got to watch Bluey while I clicked refresh on my phone and computer. (For those who don't know what Bluey is, it's an Australian cartoon about a dog family. It's a cute show, but man, does it ever make you feel like you're never going to win "Parent of the Year." Bandit and Chili have that title locked up for ages.)

As a reminder, this is the first of two emails I will send out regarding the election. This one includes my initial thoughts and some early takeaways. The second report will go out in the next week or two once I get my hands on the list of everyone who voted on Election Day.

One last note before I get started. I'm not going to discuss who won / lost or what gains were made by whom (outside of those needed to discuss the state as a whole). There will be plenty of other groups and organizations who will discuss that and take credit for that.

Now, on to my observations from the election.


What I Got Wrong (Total Turnout)

This seems like a good place to start. On Monday night, I said turnout would be 7.7 million, with 2.2 million people voting on Election Day. While the final total may change slightly, 8.1 million people actually voted (with 2.6 million of those votes coming on Election Day). So, I was off by about 5%. You know what they say, horseshoes and hand grenades.

8.1 million people voting comes out to a turnout rate of 45.6%. Again, for comparison:

In 2018, turnout was 8,371,655 (53.0%).
In 2014, 4,727,208 (33.7%).
In 2010, 4,979,870 (38.0%).
And in 2006, 4,399,068 (33.6%).

Turnout this year was slightly above the average of 2014 and 2018. The average of those two elections is 43.3%. We'll have to wait until 2026, but it appears that turnout in 2018 was an outlier and the norm for Texas in midterms is in the 30-45% range.

What else did I get wrong?

While I did not publish it, I thought Governor Abbott would receive around 51% from early/mail voters (he received 54%). Those who know me will tell you that I'm a "doom and gloom" guy when it comes to election results. Before polls closed on Election Day, I kept running calculations based on worst case scenarios. For example, I was calculating that only 85% of Republican Primary voters would end up voting for Republican candidates, even though I know from extensive polling on the subject that around 95% will end up voting for the Republican candidate. While I'm a numbers guy, occasionally I have a hard time believing the numbers and instead, I let external factors impact my judgment...just like when I let friends talk me into putting money on rolling a hard eight when I know the odds are terrible (10:1). I must remember that math and numbers are our friends.


What I got right

In my email on Tuesday, I said I expected that the results from early voting would likely favor Republicans but that Election Day totals would be even better for Republicans.

Governor Abbott received 54% of the votes cast during early voting (this includes ballot by mail). Abbott's Election Day percentage was 57%. He ended up with 55% when all votes are combined.

Again, I will have more information on this once I have the lists of everyone who voted on Election Day, but it does seem that a lot of Republican Primary voters did decide to wait until Tuesday to vote, along with a significant number Republican-leaning non-primary voters. This Republican surge on Election Day helped several candidates win their races. I was part of one race where the candidate was down after the early vote was tallied and he needed 54% of the vote from Election Day voters. He ended up getting that and more.

The map below shows the difference between how Governor Abbott performed on Election Day versus how he performed during early voting. For example, in Bastrop County (East of Austin), Abbott received 53.9% during early voting but got 64.2% on Election Day, a difference of 10.3%. He ended up receiving 57.2% overall in the county.




Historical Statewide Trends

While Judge Jesse McClure was the highest performing Republican statewide candidate (57.3%) on the ballot this year, the average of all Republican statewide candidates (non-judicial and judicial) ended up being 55.9%. How does that compare to previous cycles?

• 2020 - 53.8%
• 2018 - 52.8%
• 2016 - 54.3%
• 2014 - 60.9%
• 2012 - 55.8%
• 2010 - 60.4%

The average of the averages (it sounds weird, but stick with me for a second) from 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2022 is 58.3%. The average of the averages from 2016, 2018, and 2020 is 53.6%.

I will let everyone come to their own conclusions on why the numbers for 2016-2020 differ from the others. I have my thoughts on the subject.


Urban vs. Suburban vs. Rural

As I had discussed previously, turnout needed to be higher in rural areas in order for Republican statewide candidates to do well. A few people questioned why a candidate would spend so much time in rural counties when there are fewer voters than in the cities/suburbs. Rural Texans are the king makers.

Turnout in rural Texas counties was higher than in the urban and suburban counties. In the 229 smallest counties in the state, turnout was 47.0% (2,057,653 votes cast out of 4,380,134 registered voters). Meanwhile, turnout in the five largest counties was 44.8% (3,302,669 votes cast out of 7,366,698 registered voters). In the next 20 largest counties, turnout was 45.8% (2,711,866 votes cast out of 5,925,311 registered voters).

Governor Abbott won rural Texas with 77% of the vote. When I said, rural Texans are king makers, I must note that they got an assist from the suburban counties (the next 20 largest counties behind Harris, Dallas, Bexar, Travis, and Tarrant). Abbott received 55% of the vote from these counties. In 2020, Trump lost these counties with only 49.2% of the vote and in 2018, Cruz lost them with 47.5%.

In the five largest counties, most of which are solidly blue, Abbott received 41%. It is worth noting that Abbott won Tarrant County (Fort Worth) with 51.4% of the vote. That's a county both Trump and Cruz lost.

36% of all votes cast for Abbott came from the 229 smallest counties, his largest share. Meanwhile, 41% of all votes cast for O'Rourke came from the five largest counties.



How did Beto O'Rourke do compared to 2018?

Out of the 254 counties in Texas, O'Rourke got a higher percentage of the vote in 2022 than he did in 2018 in only one county: Kaufman County (SE of Dallas). In 2018, he received 31.3% of the vote while in 2022, he received 32.7%.

In Starr County (a border county), in 2018, O'Rourke received 76.6% of the vote. However, in 2022, he only received 57.9%. That was a shift of 18.8%.

O'Rourke's decrease from his 2018 percentages was the worst in many counties in South and West Texas with some in the Panhandle as well. I will discuss South Texas in a bit more detail in the next section.




South Texas

An entire discussion could be had about what counties belong to what regions of the state. Instead of trying to find the perfect solution, I adopted the regions in the maps below. While I don't necessarily agree with some of their decisions (Ex: I wouldn't consider Comal County as being in South Texas) but it's the best I found right now and I'm too tired to look for another one. Finding a better regional map can be an odd-numbered year project. I will probably switch over to the DSHS regional map soon.

I got distracted talking about various regional maps when I really want to discuss South Texas.

Republicans spent a significant amount of time trying to improve their performance in South Texas. While the region didn't shift to being completely red, significant gains were made this year. The first map shows a breakdown by region of how Cruz performed in 2018 and the second map shows how Abbott performed this year.



Abbott received a higher percentage in the area than Cruz did in 2018. Increases in South Texas, while still below 50% in many parts, can offset the Republican loss in votes in the major metropolitan areas.

Eight counties saw double digit percentage increases for Republicans compared to 2018: Starr, Zapata, Kenedy, Jim Hogg, Maverick, Zavala, Duval, and Brooks. (Jim Hogg, Mia McCord. Did you ever think you'd see the day?)

Following the 2020 General Election, some pundits were making the claim that the improvements for Republicans in South Texas were because of President Trump and could not be replicated in future elections. This week's results prove that theory wrong. While still not over the 50% threshold in many South Texas counties, Republicans appear to be competing in the area and have no plans of letting up anytime soon.

Democrats, ignore this trend at your own peril.


Election history versus modeling

Again, I can currently only compare election results to vote data for those who voted early or by mail. Abbott received 54% of the early vote and O'Rourke received 45%. That was a difference of 9%. How does that compare to what I was reporting?

When you look at the early voting data reports I published, Republican Primary voters had an 11% advantage over Democratic Primary voters. Naturally, when there are a large portion of voters with no primary history, there is a lot of unknown in how those individuals will vote and what impact they will have on the election. However, looking at the raw numbers of primary voters seems to be a good indicator of how the final election results will look. Honestly, I can't ever recall seeing a race where a Republican ended up winning when they did not have an advantage in the primary vote category. I will actually need to go back and do a little bit more research to see if that has always been the case.

While my numbers seemed a bit more aligned with what actually happened, TargetSmart, the Democratic data firm, had a breakdown of 43% Republican voters and 41% Democratic voters for early voters. Their numbers were way off.

I have been asked by several people why I think their modeling was so wrong for Texas. I will try to give my best guess as to what happened with their modeling. TargetSmart is a national firm and it's possible when they are modeling voters, they use the same formula for the entire country. Doing it this way wouldn't take into consideration any potential differences in opinions in different regions of the country. Secondly, they may have modeled voters at a time when Democrats were performing better. For example, if the firm had modeled voters based on survey data conducted in June (immediately following the Dobbs opinion), the modeling data might skew to the left.

If you're a campaign or PAC, buy local. Or if you're in the business of making predictions / writing about elections, always go with the law of averages.


Last Notes

I will have a more thorough final report in the next few weeks. I have a million things I want to say but I promised I would get something out today. Stay tuned for a better report.

We live in a Banana Republic that citizens cannot expect its government to count votes within 4 hours of the ballots. If you wonder why people don't trust the process is because the process is not trustworthy.

We are seeing the last few big, pro-Dem drops. Soon they’ll run out, & then there are hundreds of thousands of pro-R ballots to count. We will overtake them and win. 🇺🇸

— Blake Masters (@bgmasters) November 11, 2022