Turnout in this week of early voting for the Republican senate runoff in Texas is looking to be more than double what it was last year. Some say high turnout will favor Dewhurst over Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz, in a sense “diluting the Tea.”
The Dallas Morning News crunched the numbers:
Two days of early voting for Tuesday’s GOP runoff election in urban counties of Texas has yielded more than twice as many votes as it did last spring.
The runoff’s early-vote period, which ends Friday, is just five days — less than half the length of the May 14-May 25 early voting window that preceded the May 29 primary. So to get an early vote equal to that cast in the primary, you have to have participation that’s more than twice as heavy.
But many have predicted a steep drop-off in voter participation in the runoff. So far, that’s not borne out.
Figures released by Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade’s office on Wednesday — and crunched byThe Dallas Morning News to get comparables — show that in the 10 counties with the most registered votes, 31,622 votes were cast on Monday; and on Tuesday, 36,255.
This has some people scratching their head, like Raz Shafer from American Majority:
Late Thursday afternoon, two Dewhurst endorsements were announced, State Senator Dan Patrick, who founded the Tea Party Caucus in the Texas Senate, and Comptroller Susan Combs who is angling for a 2014 Lieutenant Governor run.
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Simple explanation. The dead are voting 2 or times. Illegals are voting 2 or 3 times. Registered voters are voting 2 or 3 times. It’s the democrat/Chicago way.
Open primary?
Don’t panic yet….
From the article:
It’s a small sample size, but the numbers may surprise some folks. I wouldn’t dare to venture a guess as to who it helps in the U.S. Senate battle between Ted Cruz and David Dewhurst, though the conventional wisdom is that higher turnout helps Dewhurst because it “dilutes the tea” with voters who tilt more to the Texas conservative business establishment. But Cruz has made this a race and there’s nothing to say the healthy early vote numbers don’t reflect the zeal of his volunteer-staffed phone banks and energized supporters.
That’s why, if you don’t mind, we’ll just go ahead and have the election. Put the crystal balls away, thank you.
High turnout usually means high enthusiasm (including anger-based enthusiasm).
To “dilute the tea” AND have high enthusiasm means the voters are either very angry about something the Tea Parties promote, or really charged up over something irrelevant to the Tea Parties.
Therefore, conventional wisdom is that high turnout means people are angry over the thought of too much personal freedom and keeping more of their own money.
In Texas. Right.
1. Cruz continues to be strong on Intrade, but he shouldn’t schedule the swearing in just yet.
2. Intrade and similar betting markets are far from perfect, but I follow them for three reasons:
a. All else being equal, I consider people who back up their opinions with their own money to be more credible than people who don’t.
b. Some research suggests that betting markets have predictive power.
c. Market information is conveniently accessible. (Of course it is: they are trying to attract users.)
If anger is motivating voters, my guess would be that it is anger at the mudslinging and ultra negative tone of the Dewhurst campaign. If enthusiasm is motivating voters, the enthusiasm is definitely with Cruz.
I’ve heard that low turnout would benefit Cruz, but high turnout doesn’t necessarily hurt him. There’s a huge rally featuring Cruz in Dallas tonight, and another one, featuring Sarah Palin and Jim Demint endorsing Cruz in Houston Friday night. That’s bound to be ginning up turnout… turnout for Cruz. Time will tell.
If anger is motivating voters, my guess would be that it is anger at the mudslinging and ultra negative tone of the Dewhurst campaign. If enthusiasm is motivating voters, the enthusiasm is definitely with Cruz.
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Those are COMPLIMENTARY motives sometimes.
I am PISSSSSED at Dewhurts and Patrick.
I am enthused to vote FOR Cruz!
I could never figure out what the message was in the Dewhurst campaign. We were supposed to vote for Dewhurst because his dad took part in D-Day??? I never saw Dewhurst’s FATHER’S military service as a reason to vote for Dewhurst. The other main campaign pitch was: “Vote for Dewhurst because Ted Cruz is a slimy lawyer!” I don’t know how others saw it, but to me those ads looked like cheap shots.
One personal, and totally unscientific observation: I tutor kids in the Woodlands two or three times a week. In the subdivisions up there I see a lot of Cruz yard signs, but so far only one Dewhurst sign. People who are demonstrative about their politics seem to be supporting Ted Cruz. Now there must be a lot of Dewhurst supporters up in the Woodlands, but I would have expected around a 50/50 split in yard signs. In the subdivisions where I tutor the signs are practically ALL for Cruz. Again, that’s a totally unscientific observation, but thought I would share it. If there are other folks out there who know the Woodlands and read this blog, I’d love to hear their observations.
I was up there four days this week, but am stuck in Houston till 7 tonight. I’ll miss the big event–bummer!
Let’s wait and see how many come out to the campaign
ralleys that Sarah Palin will attend on Friday for Cruz.
I hope this means Texans are enthusiastic about voting for Cruz — they are in my community but who knows about the rest of Texas? It should help Cruz that Palin is coming to Texas to campaign for him.
I hope this means that the tea party is turning out in full force. I bet many people were waiting for the first race of the primary to end knowing that there will be a runoff were the race will actually be decided.
We’ll see on election day…
Everybody I know is early voting, and almost all of us are for Cruz. I think he’ll win it. The Tea Party has a lot of support, even from those who don’t actually rally with them.
As for Dan Patrick, my Senator, endorsing Dewhurst, that’s just political payback between two pragmatists. But, the next time I see Dan, he’ll hear how I feel about it!
The final consideration that made me vote for Cruz is his stance on immigration as reported by NumbersUSA. He had a green checkmark for every illegal immigration issue.
Dewhurst on the other hand has produced nothing that enhances border security and the non-stop inflow of illegals into the country. Nothing!
Quite an achievement indeed…
I called my Texan friends to urge them to vote Cruz.
Naturally, they were already supporting Cruz (guess that’s why they are my friends, we think alike 😉
To my surprise, they also all voted already.
I have a feeling the early voting pattern will *not* follow last time. Of course, this anecdotal sample has zero predictive power under traditional statistical methods.
But on the *gut feel* scale, I’m smelling upset.
Don’t get cocky, er, I mean, you are Texans so of course you are confident – but get out there and vote Cruz and make sure and don’t get too cocky.
Exactly who are the “some” who say high turnout will favor Dewhurst? I certainly have not seen any analysis that supports the idea that Cruz would benefit from a low turnout. I have also not seen any detailed analysis of why we should consider the current turnout unusually high when all factors are taken into account.
I have no idea how to analyze turnout; but my guess is that the passage of time since the first round of voting helps Cruz because of the huge name-recognition advantage that Dewhurst must have had when the primary season began.
I still find it amazing that Cruz has been able to overcome the name-recognition advantage, if he has indeed done so. I will vote for Cruz, primarily because the folks who support and endorse him give me hope that he might be a principled, small-government conservative/libertarian, rather than the sort of big-government, conservative-only-when-Texas-big-business-interests-allow-it folks that are all too prevalent among Texas Republican politicians; but I will be surprised (pleasantly surprised, but surprised nonetheless) if he wins.
I know two early votes that went to Cruz.
The more the merrier and the larger the margin of victory for Cruz. Don’t doubt me.
By the way, Sarah Palin and your nemesis, Rick Santorum, will actually be in Texas rallying support prior to election day.
The get out the vote campaign for Dewhurst is enormous. Oil and gas, agriculture (Texas Farm Bureau specifically), and some Democrats are all spending on getting out the vote. Since Texas has open primaries and run-offs, and the Democrats have nothing this fall to vote for, it is wide open with Democrats openly voting in Republican primaries. Cruz has done an outstanding job of playing catch up but Dewhurst has been around a long time and is generally liked. I think it will be close and I cannot call it.
What exactly is Dewhurst doing to GOTV
except allowing vile nagative ads that malign a decnt man?
I have not seen coverge of a signle GOTV rrally or forum for Dewhurst in North Texas
All Dewhrst appears to have is millions and smear ads.
People are not stupid Dew
No rallies. Phone calls. Some are recordings, a lot are phone banks, and many are personal phone calls. I have gotten three and I have an unlisted home phone and seldom given out cell number. The agricultural organizations are going all out. Oil and gas producers and royalty owners organizations are also. I have gotten two personal phone calls and one from a phone bank. Zero from Cruz. That is how it is done here. Very low key and remind people of who has been working in their interest for a long time. As I said Cruz has done well against this kind of organization.