Nov 1, 2020 | House Race Analyses, Political Climate
Yesterday (Saturday), we posed two fundamental questions that will be answered Tuesday, or shortly thereafter. We gave our best guess on the first question, whether Joe Biden will become the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry Texas since 1976 (No, but...
Oct 28, 2020 | Campaign Finance
Yesterday’s report about campaign finance results for key House races was missing details about a number of Democratic candidates’ 8-day-out reports. To be clear, they filed their reports on time, but the contribution and expenditure details were not yet available...
Oct 27, 2020 | breaking-news, Campaign Finance
The battle for the Texas House got expensive. Candidates in competitive seats collectively raised $39.3M during the past month, much of through in-kind contributions from a handful of sources. Republicans, bolstered by huge spending by Texans for Lawsuit Reform...
Oct 20, 2020 | Campaign News
Early voting: Yesterday (Monday) was the seventh day of the early voting period, which typically beings on a Monday but this year started on a Tuesday. Looking at the 15 counties with the most registered voters, 3.25M voters have cast their ballots so far,...
Oct 18, 2020 | Political Climate
Our latest model run moves the presidential race in Texas to Toss Up and projects a narrow Democratic majority in the Texas House when the Legislature convenes in January. Another four Republican-held House seats are within 2 percentage points of potentially adding to...
Oct 13, 2020 | Campaign News
Early voting has begun across Texas for the November 3 general election and continues through October 30. By most accounts, turnout is off to a torrid start. The Harris Co. Clerk’s office tweeted that 128K people voted in person today, plus 41K absentee ballots...
Oct 7, 2020 | Campaign News
Early voting may begin next week as ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott (R), ruled the Texas Supreme Court, essentially because the legal challenge to that order was filed too late. “Relators could have asserted their challenge at any time in the past ten weeks,” wrote Chief...
Oct 6, 2020 | Campaign Finance
Statewide and legislative candidates facing general election opposition reported raising nearly $27M since July 1. Democrats accounted for $12.4M of that figure, and Republican candidates raised $14.6M. Sixteen challengers out-raised their incumbent opponents for the...
Oct 1, 2020 | Campaign News
Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued a proclamation (PDF) limiting to one location where voters may return an absentee ballot in person. Harris, Travis and other counties have designated multiple drop-off locations. “As we work to preserve Texans’ ability to vote during the...
Aug 29, 2020 | House Race Analyses
We continue our series of analyses of competitive, or potentially competitive, legislative seats with an exploration of the I-35 corridor from Bell Co. to Bexar Co. Republican Targets HD45 (Lean Democratic): Rep. Erin Zwiener (D-Driftwood) won this open seat in 2018,...
Aug 11, 2020 | Campaign News
SD30 special (Safe Republican): In a tweet, Dallas-area salon owner Shelley Luther said she has been approached by “dozens” of people encouraging her to seek the seat being vacated by Sen. Pat Fallon (R-Prosper). Her tweet comes a day after Rep. Jonathan Stickland...
Aug 3, 2020 | Campaign News
Former President Barack Obama released his “first wave” of 2020 endorsements, which included 27 Texas House and U.S. House incumbents, challengers and open-seat candidates: House incumbents Erin Zwiener (HD45), James Talarico (HD52), Jessica González (HD104), Terry...
