Straight-ticket Voting Trends in HD40

Jun 30, 2016 | House Race Analyses, Straight-ticket Voting

We continue our look into straight-ticket voting trends in today’s competitive or potentially competitive districts by looking at HD40 in Hidalgo Co. After examining the straight-ticket voting data going back to 2004, we conclude that neither label can be applied to HD40.

Rep. Terry Canales

Rep. Terry
Canales

Mari De Leon

Mari
De Leon

Rep. Terry Canales (D-Edinburg) is seeking a third term. He is opposed by Mari De Leon, a legislative aide to Rep. Gilbert Pena (R-Pasadena). She is the first Republican to seek HD40 since 1996. No minor party candidates filed for the seat.

Generally speaking, Republicans have been gaining footholds in South Texas, and Republican candidates are running in an increasing number of races in many South Texas counties. However, HD40 is trending toward becoming a stronger Democratic seat. The number of Republican straight-ticket voters is largely flat between 2004 and 2012 while the number of Democratic straight-ticket voters has doubled.

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

2004

  • Straight Republican – 3,000 21% 21%
  • Straight Democratic – 7,300 51% 51%
  • Full Ballot – 6,000 42% 42%

Democratic Advantage: ~4,300 votes

%

Straight Republican

%

Straight Democratic

2008

  • Straight Republican – 2,500 18% 18%
  • Straight Democratic – 10,600 75% 75%
  • Full Ballot – 9,100 64% 64%

Democratic Advantage: ~8,100 votes

%

Straight Republican

%

Straight Democratic

2012

  • Straight Republican – 3,031 21% 21%
  • Straight Democratic – 14,201 100% 100%
  • Full Ballot – 8,357 59% 59%

Democratic Advantage: 11,180 votes

%

Straight Republican

%

Straight Democratic

Our analysis cannot go as far back into history here as we have done with some of the more urban/suburban districts. Data from 2000 were not available. We could utilize early voting numbers only for 2004, as the information we received from Hidalgo Co. did not specifically tally straight-ticket votes cast on Election Day by precinct.

Even with these limitations, it appears that Republican straight-ticket voters represent a declining share of voters overall, while Democratic straight-ticket voters have grown to a majority of all voters.

In 2012, a majority of HD40 voters cast Democratic straight-ticket votes. If that performance repeats in 2016, it will be virtually impossible for a Republican to carry this district.

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.
Filed under HD40, Straight-ticket Voting .