Nov 8, 2020 | General Elections, House Race Analyses
This is the first in a series of periodic analyses of the 2020 general election. The signs pointed to further Democratic gains in the Texas House of Representatives. Entering Election Day, there were 83 Republican-held seats and 67 Democrat-held seats. Two years...
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 22, 2020 | Campaign News
As of yesterday (Wednesday), the ninth day of early voting, 5.9M Texans have already cast ballots, which is 34.7% of registered voters. That is already more early votes cast than in any election aside from 2018 (5.99M), which was almost certainly surpassed today...
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 11, 2020 | Political Climate
With three weeks to go before the general election, the state of play up and down the ballot remains remarkably stable across Texas. However, as races remain close, that stability could mask a lot of volatility within polls’ margins of errors and assumptions about who...
Oct 8, 2020 | Campaign News
SC6 (Lean Republican): The Dallas Morning News endorsed Justice Jane Bland (R). HD67 (Toss Up): Rep. Jeff Leach’s (R-Allen) campaign released a new ad, “Unfit,” criticizing Democratic challenger Lorenzo Sanchez on law enforcement issues. HD92 open (Lean Republican):...
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 5, 2020 | Campaign News
A third lawsuit has been filed seeking to overturn Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) order limiting counties to providing a single drop-off location for absentee ballots returned in person. On Friday, the League of Women Voters of Texas, LULAC and others sued in federal court. A...
Sep 28, 2020 | Campaign News
As expected, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an administrative stay to prevent a lower court ruling from restoring the single-punch, straight-party voting option to the general election ballot. The state will seek an emergency stay – an administrative...
