Stormy weather ahead for local Republicans?

A couple of weeks ago I joined a small luncheon group that included a current and a former Harris County elected official.  Both were elected and re-elected as Republicans, as has been the case with every county-wide office holder since 1994.  The current official expressed concern for his party’s candidates running this year because a “perfect storm” of unusual events coming together may break the Republican lock on county offices.  I don’t pretend to know how the November general election will turn out but I agree that down-ballot Republicans should be worried this year.  Why?

First, Obamamania.  With Barack Obama now the presumptive Democratic nominee, that is not good news for local Republicans.  While Senator Obama ran behind Hillary Clinton by about 100,000 votes statewide in the March 4th Democratic primary, he lead her in Harris County by 50,000 votes so we can presume he will be the stronger  Democrat to head the ticket.  His strength in Harris County reflected the fact that our population is younger than the national and state average, is better educated than Americans and Texans in general, and has a higher percentage of African American voters than the state and nation.  These are the demographics that predicted success across the country for Senator Obama in his long and hard contest with Senator Clinton, and they will likely work well for him in the November matchup with Senator John McCain.

Additionally, Senator Obama has indicated he wants to extend the playing field into more “red” states, and Harris County is the best venue in Texas to make that effort.  A key to watch for in this regard whether the presumed Democratic nominee is in Texas and Houston early in the summer helping local Democrats like U.S. Senate candidate Rick Noriega raise serious money for his statewide effort.  Obama did poorly with local Latino voters in the March primary, so this would be a good opportunity for him to reach out to this fast-growing voter group that backed Senator Hillary Clinton earlier this year.  If Senator Obama brings more money and an enthusiastic base of young, well-educated, and black voters to the polls in the fall election he could trigger a wipe-out of county GOP office holders similar to what happened in Dallas County in 2006 where every opposed Republican was defeated in the General Election.

Second, scandals.  The danger for a party of winning control of government is that voters hold you accountable when things go wrong, as happens from time to time in human affairs.   With all county-wide officials elected as Republicans, the well-publicized problems of former District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, Sheriff Tommy Thomas, and County Commissioner Jerry Eversole create a cloud over at the courthouse that could result in a “throw the rascals” out mentality among swing voters this fall.  Key here will be whether local media, and especially television news, continues to run stories putting county officials in a bad light.  This “free” media, if negative, is extremely difficult to counter with paid advertising.  So let’s see what stories investigative reporters like Channel 13’s Wayne Dolcefino are filing in the next months.  If Wayne and his counterparts keep their cameras focused on alleged wrong-doing at the Harris County Courthouse, this could give Democratic challengers a bird’s nest on the ground.

Finally, demographic changes.  A couple of days ago I looked at County Clerk Beverly Kaufman’s election archives (Ms. Kaufman is not up this year, so she is not sweating out this difficult election year like other Republicans).  Four year ago, we had 1,809,407 people registered for the March 2004 primaries.  That is almost exactly the same number we had in March 2008 (1,809,742).    But, in 2008 we have about 25,000 more registered Hispanic surname-voters on the county voter rolls, and approximately 10,000 more Asian voters, as well as several thousand more African American voters.  This means there are about 50,000 fewer Anglos  on the Harris County voter rolls than was the case in the last presidential election.  That is important because Democrats do much better locally (and nationally) with minority voters than they do with whites of European ancestry.   Now the Harris County Republican Party will surely mount a major effort to make up this ground in the next four months (voters have to register by the first week in October to vote in the November 4 election), but with U.S. Census Bureau estimates showing all the population growth in Harris County is among non-Anglos, that may be difficult. 

All in all, it is shaping up to be a very interesting election year from the race for the White House to the contests for control at the Harris County Courthouse. 

Comments

[zekeloftin]

I'm all for that, "Throw the rascals out mentality."
Good riddance in my book. No tears will be shed here if the old school republicans wither away.

[Josh]

A terrorist running for President...Stupid people in the USA

[apu auchmed]

A terrorist is President

[CP3O]

Why don you ever talk about the role that the news media takes in "shaping" the news. I did not notice anything about "Cheif Bradford" and the crime lab scandel. He was about to be indited when he left office. But now he it the darling of every news outlet. This is not news, this is your opinion. You need to air opposing views. And you call yourselves professionals?

[Dan Laz]

1. Somebody should delete, or at least edit C3PO's post. Embarrassing.

2. I appreciate the insight regarding the changing demographics of Harris County. I had no idea there were 50k fewer whites on the voter rolls. Thanks, Dr. Murray.

[KMK]

Interesting that the writer ignorantly equates "white" (i.e., "of the caucasian race") with "anglo". Evidently those of us who are of non-British Empire descent or at least Northwest European descent (including Slavs, Mediterranian peoples, Lebanese, AND, technically, Latinos of Spanish or other European family origin) need not apply.

Factoid: "race" is NOT identical to "cultural identity", even though both are, in practice, used equally as supposed "reasons" for prejudice.