Since I arrived as a baby professor at UH in the fall of
1966 I have followed the voting patterns across Harris County
through 22 general elections. In the
course of this, my office has become so stuffed with precinct maps, official
election results and other political detritus that the university’s fire
marshal recently wrote me up for creating a combustible hazard. In thousands of hours of poring over city and
county precinct maps, census data, and precinct election returns I have
developed (I think) a pretty good sense of the political and demographic
changes taking place across our metropolitan area.
Most changes are fairly gradual and predictable. For example, new subdivisions emerge on the
edge of the expanding urbanized area and are largely populated by Anglos who
strongly support Republicans. Balancing
this off are older city neighborhoods where whites move out, blacks and Hispanics
move in, and the Democratic vote goes up.
This combination has preserved a relative political balance for the last
30 years, giving Republicans an edge in
county wide elections. In 2008, that
pattern broke down, as Democrats led in 43 of the 47 contests on the ballot
that voters throughout Harris County cast ballots
in.
There are different explanations for this shift, with the
most common being an “Obama Effect” that swept in local Democrats. There is something to this, as the Democratic
presidential nominee produced record turnout among African American voters in
the nation and in Houston, voters who voted the straight Democratic ticket here
and elsewhere. But the Obama Effect hurt
local Democrats in other areas as Latino turnout was well below expectations,
and normally Democratic white voters in areas like Deer Park, Baytown, and Tomball
either stayed home or shifted to the Republican column. If Senator Obama both helped and hurt local
Democrats, what accounted for the big overall blue swing in Harris County
on November 4, 2008?
The number one factor, from my on-going analysis of the 874
voting precincts in Harris County, was a big change
in normally Republican suburban areas.
The most prominent example is in State Representative Bill Caligari’s
District 132 in far west Harris County. When this district was drawn by the
Republican majority on the Legislative Redistricting Broad in 2001, every one
of the precincts in the district was solidly red. But in November 2008, eight of the 26 local
voting units went for Barack Obama.
Overall, the Republican presidential vote in District 132 increased in
2008 by 2,640 compared to 2004. However,
this was trumped by a Democratic gain of 12,911 votes. That net gain of 10,271 votes accounted for
about one-half the 20,000 vote lead Senator Obama won in Harris County. This shift surprised me because it was both
very large and very sudden. Look at the
presidential vote in this part of Harris County from 1988 to 2004,
and then check 2008.
Presidential Vote by Party in District 132
Year Republican Democratic Rep. %
1988 16,841 5,320 24.0
1992 18,914 7,043 27.1
1996 23,301 9,181 28.3
2000 32,855 11,189 25.4
2004 38,652 15,647 28.8
2008 41,292 28,558 40.9
Nothing gradual at all about the 2004 to 2008 shift. Looking more closely at individual precincts
in District 132, one can surmise what happened.
There was some moderate shift toward the Democrats in established
neighborhoods as whites moved out and minorities moved in, but that alone could
not lead to a near doubling of the Democratic presidential vote in just four
years. Rather, the majority of blue gains
came from new subdivisions built after the 2004 General Election. Those new housing developments clearly
attracted a large number of minority families and voters who favored Senator
Obama and all other Democrats on the county ballot.
A good example is Precinct 149, a huge area west of Barker-Cypress Road and north of FM 529. This was a thinly
inhabited part of the Katy Prairie for most of the years I have been in Houston. The precinct’s population and voter
registration actually declined in the 1970s and 1980s as rural families moved to
the city or its suburbs. In 1976 there
were 923 voters in the Carter-Ford presidential election, but this dropped
steadily until 1992 when only 602 ballots were cast in Precinct 149 (which was,
that year, relabeled as Precinct 616).
Then suburbanization reached the fringes of Precinct 149, and
presidential turnout more than doubled by 1996 to 1494 voters. The new arrivals followed the expected
pattern, voting mostly Republican. For
example, in 2004 there were 2,186 ballots cast in Precinct 149. President Bush got 1472 votes to 673 for
Senator Kerry. Nothing new here – just a
big Republican margin in a new suburban area.
But thousands of new residents moved into Precinct 149
after the 2004 vote. The accompanying growth
in voter registration forced the county to split 149 in 2006, creating a new
Precinct 143 in the northeast corner of the old voting area. In 2008, Precinct 143 did the expected and
voted for the McCain-Palin ticket, 1,547 to 618 for Obama-Biden. But in the remaining portion of Precinct 149,
the Democratic presidential ticket outpolled the Republicans by 2,568 to
2,042. This flip happened because, from
Day One, the new subdivisions in Precinct 149 included sizeable numbers of
minority families that voted Democratic.
Nor was Precinct 149 alone. A
half dozen other precincts in Rep. Caligari’s district also saw big increases
in African American and Hispanic voters.
We’ll get a head count of minority grow in suburban Harris County from the
2010 census, and those new data will force a complete redrawing of all legislative
and congressional districts in early 2011.
Stay tuned for more on that.
Dr. Richard Murray
** When this district was drawn by the Republican majority on the Legislative Redistricting Broad **
Did the lady have a name? :)
Posted by: Kevin Whited | August 03, 2009 at 08:35 PM