Our look into straight-ticket voting trends in today’s competitive or potentially competitive districts shifts to Southeast Texas with HD144 in Harris Co. Comprised of portions of Baytown, Deer Park, Houston, Pasadena and South Houston, HD144 has switched partisan representation twice in four years.

It was held for a long time by former Rep. Robert Talton (R-Pasadena), but the seat is now more of a toss-up after it was redrawn in 2011. A combination of low turnout and close straight-ticket voting between the parties makes the seat competitive.

Rep. Gilbert Pena

Rep. Gilbert
Pena

Mary Ann Perez

Mary Ann
Perez

We estimate HD144 would have been decided by 500 or fewer votes in five of the last eight general elections (and likely a sixth) had it always been drawn as it is today. Indeed, Rep. Gilbert Pena (R-Pasadena) won the seat in 2014 by 152 votes. We estimate that similarly close elections would have occurred in 2000 (Democrat by ~100 votes), 2002 (Democrat by ~200 votes), 2006 (Democrat by ~500 votes) and 2010 (virtual tie) had HD144 been configured for those elections as it is today. Additionally, in 2004, straight-ticket voters would have been almost evenly split, but Talton ran unopposed.

Pena faces former Rep. Mary Ann Perez (D-Houston) in a rematch of their 2014 race. There are no minor party candidates. Perez first won the seat in 2012 by a little over 1,561 votes, which was practically equal to the Democrats’ advantage in straight-ticket voting (1,531 votes) in the district. Republican candidates had a 281-vote advantage in straight-ticket votes in 2014, and that gave Pena his margin of victory.

Estimates of the number of straight-ticket and full-ballot votes cast in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 presidential elections and the actual number of those votes in the 2012 presidential election are shown below.

2000

  • Straight Republican – 6,000 61% 61%
  • Straight Democratic – 7,100 72% 72%
  • Full Ballot – 9,900 100% 100%

Democratic Advantage: ~1,100 votes

%

Straight Republican

%

Straight Democratic

2004

  • Straight Republican – 9,300 94% 94%
  • Straight Democratic – 9,200 93% 93%
  • Full Ballot – 8,500 86% 86%

Republican Advantage: ~100 votes

%

Straight Republican

%

Straight Democratic

2008

  • Straight Republican – 7,200 73% 73%
  • Straight Democratic – 8,900 90% 90%
  • Full Ballot – 8,600 87% 87%

Democratic Advantage: ~1,700 votes

%

Straight Republican

%

Straight Democratic

2012

  • Straight Republican – 7,843 79% 79%
  • Straight Democratic – 9,374 95% 95%
  • Full Ballot – 6,697 68% 68%

Democratic Advantage: 1,531 votes

%

Straight Republican

%

Straight Democratic

Since 2000, straight-ticket voters in the precincts currently comprising HD144 have given Democratic candidates advantages of up to 1,700 votes in all but two election cycles. In 2004 and 2014, Republican candidates had advantages of fewer than 300 votes after straight-ticket voting.

Because straight-ticket advantages have remained relatively small, the district’s partisan balance rarely strays beyond 55% of the vote in any contested race. The result is a wobble between the parties that sometimes defies turnout changes in presidential years versus gubernatorial years.

Voters in the precincts currently comprising HD144 favored George W. Bush in 2000 (54%) and 2004 (55%) and John McCain (52%) in 2008. In 2012, Barack Obama carried HD144, 51%-49%, over Mitt Romney. In gubernatorial cycles, the district’s current precincts have favored Democrats Tony Sanchez (51% in 2002) and Bill White (54% in 2010) and Republican Greg Abbott (53% in 2014). While the number of straight-ticket voters has increased for both parties since 2000, the number of full-ballot voters has fallen by about a third. In 2012, full-ballot voters comprised just 28% of all votes cast in HD144, down from 43% in 2000. This same trend is evident in gubernatorial election years as well.

Full-ballot voters have favored Republican presidential candidates, but the advantage seen by Mitt Romney in 2012 was considerably smaller than the previous three Republican presidential candidates. Voters in HD144’s current precincts were more evenly split on House candidates.

Estimated Full-ballot Voter Splits in Presidential Election Years

President

2000 – Bush 65%, Gore 35%
2004 – Bush 66%, Kerry 34%
2008 – McCain 65%, Obama 35%
2012 – Romney 56%, Obama 34%

House Candidates

2000 – Republicans 55%, Democrats 45%
2004 – Cannot be calculated*
2008 – Democrats 52%, Republicans 48%
2012 – Mary Ann Perez 50.2%, David Pineda 49.8%

*Rep. Robert Talton was unopposed for re-election in 2004.

Perez has received slight advantages from full-ballot voters in both of her races (30 votes in 2012, 129 votes in 2014) but these are easily washed out by straight-ticket voting if the Republican Party does a better job turning out votes in what should be a close election. Low turnout combined with close (and declining in influence) full-ballot voting puts more emphasis on candidates’ abilities to get their base voters to the polls.

The number of Democratic straight-ticket voters (9,374) was highest in 2012 in the precincts currently comprising HD144. The highest number of Republican straight-ticket voters (~9,300) occurred in 2004, when turnout across what is now HD144 was the highest of any election since 2000.

We cannot make a projection at this time, other than to call this one of the most competitive races in the state.

Methodology
Because of redistricting and shifts in precinct boundaries over time, we can only estimate straight-ticket voting prior to the last time the district was drawn (2011). We estimated straight-ticket vote totals by applying the current district boundaries backward in time to the precincts as they existed in each general election. The farther back we go, the more estimating is required. We use mapping software to identify which voting precincts lied entirely or partially in the current boundaries of HD107 in each even-year general election. We used precinct-level results from each general election. For each election prior to 2012, we allocated 100%, 75%, 50% or 25% of the votes cast in those precincts to today’s districts based on the approximate geographic area of the precinct within the district. We totaled the resulting precinct- and split precinct-level data to estimate district-wide straight-ticket votes. We rounded to the nearest 100 to avoid appearing too precise in our estimation. For the 2012 and 2014 general elections, we were able to use the current voting precincts within the current districts without the need to allocate votes across split precincts. Because we could use complete precincts, we chose to provide the accurate vote totals. We thank the Texas Legislative Council for providing the shapefile data necessary to conduct this analysis. We obtained precinct-level election results data from county election officials.