Midterm Malarkey: The Red Wave That Wasn't
Also, I'm back!
Happy Tuesday, and welcome to the seventeenth edition of Waco Can’t Wait, a progressive newsletter focusing on McLennan County, Texas, and Federal politics. I have been deep in the trenches of Practice Court at Baylor Law School for the last three and a half months, and I finally have enough time to write a newsletter again. It feels really good to get back to the keyboard, and I appreciate y’all’s patience.
Somewhere between 200+ pages of reading per night, my wife informed me that there was an election going on. I decided a good way to get things going again would be to take a look at the election results at the local, state, and federal level, while also providing some of my takeaways. I hope the information I provide will spark some interesting conversations with your conservative uncle over the Thanksgiving holiday!
United States
I am going to start out of order and lead with the good news. While pundits and Republicans were predicting a Red Wave on par with the Blue Wave in 2018, the Roe Wave seems to have materialized. Instead of Republicans flipping the House and Senate, Democrats have narrowly held onto the Senate, and Republicans are forecasted to have a slim house majority.
In the Senate, Democrats have secured the 50 seats they need to retain the Senate Majority (with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the final vote in the event of a 50-50 tie). The only unresolved senate seat, in Georgia, has gone to a runoff between Democratic Senator Rafael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker. Election Day for this runoff will be December 6th, and Walker will not have the benefit of other statewide Republican candidates boosting turnout.
In the House, Republicans have won a (narrow) majority. At the moment, the called races have Democrats at 212 seats and Republicans at 218 seats. With a Republican majority secured in the House, Republicans have been quick to lay out their legislative priorities:
Due to the underwhelming performance, there is an ongoing fight over what Republican leadership will look like at the start of next year. This infighting from Republicans may come in handy for Democrats in the 2024 cycle, especially when you consider how many Republicans are in seats that Biden won in 2020:
At the state level, Democrats and Progressives had major accomplishments up and down the ballot, including:
In the races for Governor, Democrats defeated election deniers in all the major battleground states, including a flip in Arizona.
Democrats won new trifectas (Governor’s mansion, state house, and state senate) in Michigan, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Maryland (holy alliteration, Batman!), while other individual state chambers are hanging in the balance by literally dozens of votes.
When it came to voting on ballot measures, there were many different victories:
California, Vermont, and Michigan passed state constitutional amendments creating a right to reproductive freedom;
Montana and Kentucky voted down anti-abortion amendments that were very similar to the amendment rejected in Kansas, further demonstrating the popularity of reproductive freedom in conservative states;
Unfortunately, voters in Arkansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota voted against legalizing recreational marijuana; however, Missouri and Maryland did vote to legalize marijuana, and Colorado went as far as to decriminalize and regulate the sale of psychedelics.
With respect to voting rights, Michigan and Connecticut expanded early voting and vote by mail. In Nevada, voters have approved a top-five open-primary system coupled with ranked-choice general elections. This is very similar to the new system in Alaska, and it would allow voters to choose third party or independent candidates without worrying about “spoiling” their vote.
Waco/McLennan County
The election results were disappointing in McLennan County. While we did retain all of our Democratically held seats for County Commissioner, Justice of the Peace, and Constable, our performance in these districts and the county as a whole was worse than in 2018 and 2020.
We know from the election night results that all of our local Democratic candidates in contested races underperformed Biden in 2020 and Beto in 2018. Here are the results for some of the contested seats we had, and how the candidate performed relative to Biden:
House District 56
Democrat Erin Shank - 29.8%
Republican Doc Anderson - 70.2%
Margin of Victory (MOV) - 40.4% (a 9.9% shift to the right)
House District 13
Democrat Cedric Davis - 77%
Republican Angelia Orr - 23%
MOV - 54% (a 10.8% shift to the right)
Texas’s 17th Congressional District
Democrat Mary Jo Woods - 33.5%
Republican Pete Sessions - 66.5%
MOV - 33% (a 10.4% shift to the right)
McLennan County Commissioner, Precinct No. 2
Democrat Patricia Miller - 51.1%
Republican Donis Wilson - 48.9%
MOV - 2.2% (a 15.3% shift to the right)
Justice of the Peace, Precinct No. 5
Lucyann Sanchez-Miramontez - 56.05%
Jessica Dominguez - 43.95%
MOV - 12.1% (a 12.8% shift to the right)
A notable exception to these big shifts was in the race for Justice of the Peace, Precinct No. 2. Democrat James E. Lee, Jr. defeated Republican CL Chase by about 45.2%, which was only 4.3% worse than Biden’s performance in 2020. This particular JP seat includes some of the most heavily Democratic precincts in McLennan County and overlaps almost entirely with Commissioner Miller’s county commissioner seat.
Given the stark difference in these two respective incumbents’ races, my suspicion is that we lost more votes to turnout than to vote-switching. Taking a closer look at the raw votes, Lee garnered 2,813 votes compared to 4,074 votes for Beto back in 2018. While it is important to consider down-ballot drop-off and the lack of precinct level data at this point, it’s a safe bet that at least 1,000 hardcore Democrats missed out on this election compared to last cycle.
This drop in turnout also holds up countywide. The turnout rate countywide dropped from 53.60% to 47.01% from 2018 to 2022, with 2,435 fewer people voting. If you apply 2018 turnout numbers to the 2022 total registered voters, the decrease in turnout looks more like 7,716 fewer voters than in 2018.1 This could explain why, in McLennan County, none of our statewide Democratic candidates garnered more votes than our worst performing statewide Democrat in 2018, Lupe Valdez.
Texas
Looking statewide, we got our asses kicked. Plain and simple. All else being held equal, Texas Republicans do a lot better when unpopular politicians like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are not on the ballot. If there was a single takeaway from the night, it would be regression towards the mean.2 Derek Smith, a Republican consultant for Abbott's team, said it best:
Here are some bright spots that I noticed statewide:
Democrats improved upon their 2020 performance in the Rio Grande Valley, and Republicans were only able to win one of the three targeted seats down there. The district they won, TX-15, was drawn to be a seat that Trump would have won by a single point in 2020. Unfortunately, this seat was abandoned by the DCCC several months before the election, and given the better than expected performance by Democrats across the country, this may have been an unforced error.
Democrats only lost one state house seat in the RGV, which was another seat that was gerrymandered for Republicans’ benefit. The way it is configured also may be in violation of the state constitution because it contravenes the county line rule.
Democrats also minimized losses in the more suburban, highly college-educated counties. As I have mentioned in the past, Democrats’ success in these counties will be the thing that puts our candidates over the top. A future Texas House Democratic Majority flows through these counties, thanks to the limitations on gerrymandering in the Texas house.
Here are some less than bright spots:
Abbott3 outperformed Trump in almost every single county across the state, especially the most conservative, rural counties. Republicans will continue to win elections statewide as long as they continue to run up insane margins in this territory. Despite the efforts of candidates like Mike Collier, and organizations like the 134 PAC, Democrats continue to struggle in places like the Panhandle, the Piney Woods, Hill Country, and the Gulf Coast.
In reliable Democratic counties, we saw similar 2018/2020 margins, but with reduced turnout. In Bexar, Dallas, El Paso, Harris, and Travis Counties, turnout was down over 9%. When looking at actual raw votes cast, Beto received almost 300,000 fewer votes than he did in these counties in 2018. Abbott received only 22,000 fewer votes than Cruz did in these counties.
Some Observations
I don’t claim to be clairvoyant, but the results appeared to be the most likely outcome. We had a whole mess of uninspiring/underfunded candidates, poor coordination across campaigns, counties, and local Democratic groups, and a lack of credibility on the key issues with the median voter.4 Even though nobody asked for it, I have some ideas of how we could do better next time around:
We Need Better Candidates and Candidate Recruitment
Democrats have a big problem: we love running candidates who make us feel good and that love losing elections. If we learned anything from last Tuesday, it’s that candidate quality matters. Texas Democrats cannot solely rely on demographic change, shifting voting behavior, and one-off rockstar candidates to get us over the finish line.
I do not want people to misunderstand me. I have a deep respect for anyone who decides to run for political office. It takes courage and a huge time commitment to do it right, and our nominees were all far better than the Republican alternatives. That said, we cannot continue to settle for candidates that fail upwards into races that require political experience, a deep fundraising network, and credibility with voters. Look no further than these 3 candidates:
Beto O’Rourke (yup, I have to go there)
Narrowly lost his 2018 race for Senate by 50.9% - 48.3%
Instead of running against John Cornyn in 2020, decides to run for president and then drops out before the Iowa Caucus.
Janet Dudding (Democratic nominee for Comptroller); and
Lost a 2020 race for Texas House District 14 by 57.5% - 42.5%
Raised only $231,349 for her 2022 race.
Mike Collier (Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor)
Lost his 2014 race for Comptroller by 58.4% - 37.7%
Lost his 2018 race for Lieutenant Governor by 51.3% - 46.5%
Texas Democrats have a deep bench of local, state, and federal Democratic representatives who are doing good work to improve the lives of Texans. Our Democratic leadership, donors, and volunteers need to be encouraging these folks to take the plunge into statewide office, and we need to work harder to build a deep bench of local candidates who are ready to make our state more Democratic. If we need to start drawing straws, then so be it.
We Need a Statewide Coordinated Campaign Plan
Campaign success stories in states like Nevada, Arizona, and Pennsylvania do not happen by accident. They are the result of carefully planned coordinated campaigns with buy-in from candidates, county parties, and local Democratic groups. Coordinated groups are usually tasked with turning out folks we would consider to be “straight-ticket Democratic voters,” which allows the candidates to focus on communicating with their persuasion targets or swing voters.
These coalitions of state parties, campaigns, and grassroot progressive organizations have been years in the making, and they benefit from wisdom and guidance that flows in all directions (rather than just top → down).
I believe a great deal of this reluctance to cooperate has to do with each group’s confidence in their own strategies, and the idea that any level of cooperation threatens the efficacy of their project. While someone surely has the best idea out there, we cannot continue to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Judging by the election results in Texas, we cannot afford to work separately to flip the second most populated state in the country.
Our elected officials, party leaders, and activists all need to briefly humble themselves, and work together to see how we can create mutually beneficial superstructures. I’m sure that other state groups would love to share their secrets, and unheard/ignored activists in our own state probably have their own ideas of how we can make things better at the community, county, and state level.
We Need To Build Credibility With Voters
Texas’s voters were very forthcoming this cycle about what they want our politicians to address. Among their top concerns were inflation, the economy, the border, and property taxes. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, the only thing that voters trusted Democrats more than Republicans on was abortion. On every other issue, voters thought Republicans would do a better job, and they voted accordingly.
Texas Democrats have a serious trust problem with the voters we need for a statewide victory. Coincidentally, many of these issues make our candidates squeamish. They typically default to ignoring these issues, which leaves Republicans to define our position on these issues for us. If we want to win these races, we need to draw a direct line between the concerns of voters and the solutions we are offering.
We know that this can be done. While poll after poll showed that voters across the country trusted Republicans more on issues pertaining to the economy, Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman ran an economically populist campaign that centered his plans on “making more shit in America,” cutting taxes for working people, and ending price gouging. This economics-centered campaign paid off, with voters trusting him on the economy 45% - 36% over Dr. Oz. Fetterman would go on to win his race by 4.6% and outperform Biden in every single county in the state. In some rural, conservative counties, Fetterman saw swings as big as 13%.
One of the best ways we can do this in Texas is by winning and delivering at the local level. The local levers of power, as we all know, are often far more impactful than what is coming down from Austin (or Washington D.C.). Texas Democrats need to stop seeing the state legislature as the only means of change for our neighbors, and should instead step up to run and deliver for their city, school board, or county. Once they get in there, they need to show people what it would look like for Democrats to deliver.
By organizing at the local level, we could implement all kinds of progressive policies to improve people’s lives, including:
Investing in affordable housing and enacting inclusionary zoning;
Creating livable wages and working conditions for Texans;
Decriminalizing and deprioritizing enforcement of Texas’s abortion and marijuana laws;
Revitalizing forgotten communities; or
Prioritizing public safety by investing in root causes and alternatives to policing.
Overall, I would not walk away from this election feeling discouraged. As the weeks go on, our goals and our response for 2024 and beyond will become a lot clearer. In the mean time, I recommend you call your local candidate, organizer, or volunteer, and thank them for helping our democracy. There are people who never stop working (even after Election Day), and we need to make sure that their contributions do not go unnoticed. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!
I calculated these numbers using a spreadsheet compiled by Progress Texas.
Regression towards the mean is a statistical concept that the greater the deviation of a random variate from its mean, the greater the probability that the next measured variate will deviate less far.
An important caveat:
Greg Abbott has run in every single midterm election in Texas since 1998. For reference, the year 1994 was the beginning of what has been a 28-year statewide losing streak for Texas Democrats. Greg Abbott is battle tested, well-funded, and has been highly responsive to the state’s demographic and ideological changes. Whether or not we care to admit it, Abbott has high approval numbers and maintains credibility with voters on issues like the economy and the U.S.-Mexico border (both of which were top issues this cycle).
Cycle after cycle, Abbott continues to refine his campaign operation (with the help of Dave Carney), use his own money to support down-ballot candidates, and push his message into otherwise unfriendly Democratic territory. He will likely have to retire (or run for president) before Texas Democrats get an open shot at the Governor’s mansion.
I would also recommend checking out this internal memo from the Texas Democratic Party, which highlighted Republican gerrymandering, lack of counter-messaging, and poor investment from national groups.
