Local Runoffs Favor Hughes, King in Senate Races

Primary runoff elections tend to have lower turnout than their corresponding primary elections, mainly because there are fewer – sometimes a lot fewer – races on the ballot. Fewer candidates are campaigning and working to get the vote out, which means the election has lower visibility. Many of the marquee races on the primary ballot have either been settled, reducing voter enthusiasm. A further dampening effect is caused when supporters of defeated candidates do not return to settle a runoff between two non-preferred candidates.

Because these broader effects tend to reduce turnout, multiple runoffs in one area tend to boost turnout. In other words, multiple runoffs can have additive effects because there are more candidates raising the runoff election’s visibility and creating more enthusiasm among the voters.

In past election cycles, we’ve monitored the impacts that runoffs for county office have in legislative and congressional runoff races. Typically, counties with runoffs represent higher proportions of voters in the runoff election than they did in the primary election. This effect tends to give slight advantages to one legislative runoff candidate over another. In the cases of SD1 and SD24, the two first-place candidates are poised to receive these advantages.

Rep. Bryan Hughes

Rep. David Simpson

In SD1, no runoffs for county office will take place in half of the 16 counties, representing 42% of the total votes cast in the race. Rep. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola) won a plurality in these counties as a group, but his 41% showing there was lower than in counties with a runoff in part of the county (50%) or a countywide runoff (62%). Rep. David Simpson (R-Longview) fared better in the non-runoff counties (26%) than in counties with a runoff in part of the county (17%) or a countywide runoff (19%).

In SD24, Rep. Susan King (R-Abilene) fared strongest in counties with a runoff in part of the county (30%), where she finished 6.5% ahead of Dawn Buckingham. The two were closer in counties with a countywide runoff, where King finished 0.5% ahead of Buckingham. The outcome was reversed in counties without runoffs, where Buckingham defeated King, 33%-20%.

Rep. Susan King

Dawn Buckingham

If turnout is relatively higher in counties with local runoffs, and the vote there tracks the way it did in the primary, then Simpson and Buckingham’s paths to flipping their primary results will become a little bit more difficult.

Disclosure: Jeff Blaylock, publisher of Texas Election Source, is an active patient of Dr. Dawn Buckingham.