Florida and Texas gained House seats while California and New York lost one seat each as a result of population shifts, according to the 2020 census results announced on Monday.
Texas gained two House seats in the census apportionment for a new total of 38 congressional districts, while Florida gained one House seat, bringing its total number of districts to 28. California lost one House seat and will decline to 52 congressional districts, while New York also lost one House seat and will now have 26 congressional districts. Those four states are the nation’s most populous and together provide one-third of the House’s total seats.
A census official noted that if New York had counted 89 more people, the state would not have lost a House seat.
Too bad Andrew Cuomo killed off all those old people before they could be counted.
The population of California stopped growing several years before the coronavirus pandemic, and in 2020 the state lost more residents to outmigration than it gained. Residents have migrated to Texas as well as to neighboring states such as Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon.
Once again, blue states lost population and red states gained population. People flee Democratic governance and its symptomatic poverty, high taxes, crime and disorder. It’s also the first time California has lost a congressional seat ever.
With two new congressional seats to play with, how will Texas Republicans approach redistricting? I am very far indeed from a redistricting guru, but I have a few educated guesses about how they’ll approach things:
Obviously, they’ll try to carve out two more Republican districts, but that may prove difficult. Expect a new Metroplex-area suburban/exurban Republican majority district, but don’t be surprised if they have to create another Hispanic majority district for Democrats somewhere.
The next-highest priority has to be taking back the two seats lost in 2018, AKA The Year of Beto. Both the 7th (John Culberson losing to Lizzie Fletcher) and the 32nd (Pete Sessions losing to Collin Allred) were typical sleepwalking incumbents caught by end of election cycle demographic shifts, but there’s no reason those districts can’t be redrawn to make them Republican majority districts again. Republican challenger Wesley Hunt only lost by 3% in the 7th in 2020. (Sessions carpetbagged his way into the Waco-based 17th.)
Next up would be protecting Republican incumbents whose current districts are starting to get purple. To that end, I would guess that the 2nd District, with Dan Crenshaw, a rising national star regarded as a solid team player (as newly minted congressmen Beth Van Duyne and August Pfluger can attest) in a district that’s only R+5, would be the top candidate for shoring up. Van Duyne’s 24th (R+2) and Chip Roy’s 21st (R+5) would be next. John Carter’s 31st (R+6) is starting to get purple as well, but since he’s 79, he may not get as much consideration as other incumbents. Michael McCaul’s 10th (R+5) would be another candidate, but as one of the richest incumbents, there might be sentiment that he can stand fast without much additional help. Van Taylor’s 3rd (R+6) looks like a candidate on paper, but neither he nor previous Republican incumbent Sam Johnson ever won by less than 10 points.
A separate issue than the above, due to different dynamics, is what to do about the 23rd. The only true swing district in Texas over the last decade is currently held by Republican Tony Gonzalez, who defeated Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones by 4% in 2020. Despite having a giant target on his back every time, Republican Will Hurd held the seat for three cycles before retiring despite never breaking 50%. The fate of the 23rd is highly dependent on whether they decide to carve out another majority Hispanic Democratic district for San Antonio, or whether they want to…
Make a play for the Rio Grande Valley? One of the more surprising results of 2020 was that Republicans made significant inroads into the Valley, including President Donald Trump winning Democrat Henry Cueller’s 28th outright. Part of this is due to Trump’s increasing popularity among Hispanics, but the Texas Republican Party has been pouring significant resources into the Valley. Combined with Biden’s border crisis, all this adds up to an opportunity to pick up one or more seats through redistricting. Michael Cloud’s adjacent 27th is looking pretty safe, so the temptation will be to turn one or more of the 28th, Vicente Gonzalez’s 15th (D+3) and/or Filemon Vela Jr.’s 34th (D+5) into competitive swing districts.
Another issue will be what the hell to do with Austin, the blue tumor in the heart of red Texas. One driving rationale for the shape of the 35th district (running from Austin down I-35 to San Antonio) was trying to knock off Democratic incumbent Lloyd Doggett by forcing him to face off against a San Antonio-based Hispanic Democrat. That failed, and Doggett won handily. It’s going to be mighty tempting for Republicans to throw in the towel and fashion a liberal urban core district for Austin to free up redder suburban areas to shore up Republican incumbents.
I can see one approach solution that solves a lot of those problems: an urban Austin district, a new majority Hispanic district near San Antonio, and a new majority Hispanic district huddling the Rio Grande Valley, reinforcing the 23rd and turning two of the 15th, 28th and 34th into majority Republican districts. But the fact it is obvious means that it probably won’t come to pass, with the likely result a more sophisticated (i.e., gerrymandered) solution.
The long-awaited Lone Star State runoff elections are tomorrow, postponed from May 26. At the federal level, 16 nominations will be decided, one for the Senate and 15 more in U.S. House races.
In Texas, if no candidate secures a 50 percent majority in the primary, which, in 2020, was all the way back on Super Tuesday, March 3, a runoff election between the top two finishers is then conducted within 12 weeks. Because of COVID precautions, the extended runoff cycle has consumed 19 weeks.
Sen. John Cornyn (R) will learn the identity of his general election opponent tomorrow night, and the incumbent’s campaign has seemingly involved itself in the Democratic runoff. The Cornyn team released a poll at the end of last week that contained ballot test results for the Democratic runoff, a race that seemingly favored original first-place finisher M.J. Hegar, but closer examination leads one to believe that the Cornyn forces would prefer to run against state Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas).
The TargetPoint survey identified Ms. Hegar as a 33-29 percent leader but points out that among those respondents who claim to have already voted, the two candidates were tied at 50 percent apiece. They further used the poll to identify Sen. West as the most “liberal” candidate in the race as an apparent way to influence Democratic voters that he is closer to them than Ms. Hegar.
Snip.
In the House, six districts host runoffs in seats that will result in a substantial incumbent victory this fall. Therefore, runoff winners in the 3rd (Rep. Van Taylor-R), 15th (Rep. Vicente Gonzalez-D), 16th (Rep. Veronica Escobar-D), 18th (Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee-D), 20th (Rep. Joaquin Castro-D), and 35th Districts (Rep. Lloyd Doggett-D) will become largely inconsequential in November.
The 2nd District originally was advancing to a secondary election, but candidate Elisa Cardnell barely qualified for the Democratic runoff and decided to concede the race to attorney and former Beto O’Rourke advisor Sima Ladjevardian. Therefore, the latter woman became the party nominee against freshman Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Houston) without having to face a second election. The congressman is a strong favorite for re-election, but Ms. Ladjevardian had already raised will over $1 million for just her primary election.
The 10th District Democratic runoff features attorney Mike Siegel, who held Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Austin) to a surprisingly close finish in 2018. Mr. Siegel is favored to top physician Pritesh Gandhi who has raised and spent over $1.2 million through the June 24th pre-runoff financial disclosure report, which is about $400,000 more than Mr. Siegel.
District 13 features runoffs on both sides, but it is the Republican race that will decide who succeeds retiring Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon/Amarillo) in the seat that gave President Trump his second strongest percentage (79.9 percent) in the entire country. Though finishing second in the primary election to lobbyist and former congressional aide Josh Winegarner, former White House physician and retired Navy Admiral Ronny Jackson, armed with President Trump’s vocal support, has now become the favorite. According to a Fabrizio Lee & Associates’ late June poll for an outside organization supporting the retired Admiral, Mr. Jackson leads 46-29 percent.
Former Congressman Pete Sessions is attempting a political comeback after his defeat in 2018. Moving to his boyhood home of Waco to run for the open 17th District, Mr. Sessions placed first in the primary, well ahead of second-place finisher Renee Swann, a local healthcare company executive. Being hit for his Dallas roots in the district that stretches from north of Waco to Bryan/College Station, it remains to be seen how the former 11-term congressman fares in his new district.
If he wins, the 17th will be the third distinct seat he will have represented in the Texas delegation. He was originally elected in the 5th CD in 1996, and then switched to the 32nd CD post-redistricting in 2004. Of the three elections he would ostensibly face in the current election cycle, most believed the runoff would be Mr. Sessions’ most difficult challenge.
The open 22nd District brings us the conclusion to a hotly contested Republican runoff election between first-place finisher Troy Nehls, the Sheriff of Ft. Bend County, and multi-millionaire businesswoman Kathaleen Wall. The latter has been spending big money on Houston broadcast television to call into question Nehls’ record on the issue of human sex trafficking, which is a significant concern in the Houston metro area.
With her issues and money, versus a veritable lack of campaign resources for Sheriff Nehls, Ms. Wall has closed the primary gap and pulled within the margin of polling error for tomorrow’s election. The winner faces Democratic nominee Sri Preston Kulkarni, who held retiring Rep. Pete Olson (R-Sugar Land) to a 51-46 percent victory in 2018.
In the 23rd District that stretches from San Antonio to El Paso, and is the only true swing district in Texas, retired Navy non-commissioned officer Tony Gonzales and homebuilder Raul Reyes battle for the Republican nomination tomorrow. Mr. Gonzales, with President Trump’s support, has the edge over Mr. Reyes, who did earn Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R) backing. The winner faces general election favorite Gina Ortiz Jones (D), who held retiring Rep. Will Hurd (R-San Antonio) to a scant 926 vote victory in 2018.
Back in the DFW metroplex, Democrats will choose a nominee for the open 24th District. Retired Air Force Colonel Kim Olson was originally considered the favorite for the nomination, but it appears that former local school board member Candace Valenzuela has overtaken her with outside support from Hispanic and progressive left organizations. The winner challenges former Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne (R) in what promises to be an interesting general election. Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Coppell) is retiring after eight terms in federal office. Prior to his election to Congress, Mr. Marchant spent 18 years in the Texas House of Representatives.
Finally, in the 31st District, Democrats will choose a candidate to oppose veteran Rep. John Carter (R-Round Rock). Physician Christine Mann and computer engineer Donna Imam ran close to each other in the primary, and the winner will face an uphill climb in the general election. Though 2020 Senate candidate M.J. Hegar held Mr. Carter to a 51-48 percent win two years ago, the congressman will be considered a much stronger re-election favorite this year.
The two far-left candidates backed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lost their primary elections in Texas on Tuesday.
Ocasio-Cortez announced last month that she would be supporting the primary contests of several democratic socialists running against establishment candidates. The New York Democrat endorsed Texas hopefuls Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, a candidate for Senate, and Jessica Cisneros, a primary challenger to Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar.
Ramirez lost to the establishment-backed Senate candidate M.J. Hegar. Hegar, an Air Force veteran, was endorsed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to take on Republican Sen. John Cornyn. Ramirez came in third place in the primary with 13.3% of the vote. The divisive primary featured seven candidates who all received 5% or more of the vote.
Cisneros, a 26-year-old attorney, was gunning for the seat held by Cuellar, one of the moderate Democrats Ocasio-Cortez targeted for his pro-gun policy preferences and “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. Cuellar defeated Cisneros by 4 percentage points, carrying 52% of the vote compared to her 48%.
Evidently Hegar is going to face state senator Royce West in the runoff. I got half that bracket right, predicting West to make the runoff, but I was badly wrong on Hegar’s chances. I didn’t realize that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee would endorse Hegar just five days after my roundup. Why the DSCC choose a candidate whose biggest achievement was losing a congressional race to John Carter in the Year of Beto is a mystery to me, but she’s in the runoff, albeit with only 22% of the vote.
Pierce Bush lost. That’s the sort of thing that happens when you run a carpetbagger bid in a Republican primary but go out of your way to alienate Republican voters. Instead Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls and conservative Kathaleen Wall will meet in the runoff for the retiring Pete Olson’s seat.
Following Saturday Night Live player Pete Davidson foolishly goofing on the eye Navy SEAL Lt. Com. Dan Crenshaw lost to an IED on his third deployment in Afghanistan, now Republican Congressman-elect Crenshaw came on SNL to get him back.
A lot of pundits were predicting this year’s elections would make one Texas candidate a star, they just got who it was wrong. (Previous posts about Crenshaw can be found here.)
And thanks to the universe for providing easy Veterans Day content for lazy bloggers…
I was going to do one big roundup of competitive Texas U.S. Congressional races, but the more I started digging in, the more I thought each race deserved its own entry. So let’s start with the Second Congressional District.
Republican
This is the retiring Ted Poe’s seat in northern Harris County. It looks like an interesting race, because there appear to be several potentially credible candidates:
Houston businessman David Balat looks like he has the money to compete (he’s already raised $155,965) and has been lining up endorsements.
Ex-Navy SEAL Daniel Crenshaw is drawing some attention in his first race with a compelling personal story. Losing his right eye to an IED in Afghanistan, Crenshaw also has that Moshe Dyan visage thing going for him:
Another U.S. veteran is Jonny Havens, who’s also a lawyer, formerly with Baker Botts, one of the largest and most prestigious law firms in Texas. He might have enough money and pull to run a competitive race,
Kingwood businessman Rick Walker. I actually received an email from his social media team touting his candidacy, so he has more campaign infrastructure than many candidates at this point.
Kathaleen Wall doesn’t seem to have a website up yet, but she’s well-heeled and well-connected, always a good combination, and was active into trying to take down Joe Straus lieutenant Charlies Geren. Plus I suspect 2018 will be a pretty good year for women running for office.
Just missing the cut: Justin Lurie. Venture capital background, so he could potentially raise the money necessary, but he’s a bit young and has more issues than endorsements or events at this stage.
The clear Democratic favorite here is Todd Litton, because as a lawyer whose worked in investments he can scrape up the money for a competitive race, to which end he’s already raised over $200,000.
The candidate that ran against Poe in 2016 was Pat Bryan. He raised a whopping $4,465 in 2016. (Way to support your candidate, Democrats!)
It’s a heavily Republican district and none of the Democrats running look capable of flipping it. Keep in mind that the early fundraising totals may be misleading, since Poe only announced his retirement November 7. We won’t get a real bead on race finances until Q4 results are released in January 2018.
Now that all the post-redistricting filings have been finalized, I thought I would take a look at Texas U.S. congressional races to see where either the Republican or the Democratic party has failed to field a candidate. While districts are usually drawn to protect incumbents and minimize the chances of the out-of-power party, it’s usually best to contest all possible races, for a variety of reasons:
You can’t beat something with nothing.
It helps tie down time, money and effort that could otherwise be shifted to other races.
It helps down-ballot races by drawing voters to the polls.
It offers a chance for Republicans to get their message of limited government, lower taxes and greater freedom out to people who might not otherwise hear it, and possibly make some converts in the process (the parable of the sower).
Stuff happens. Sudden, unexpected twists of fate can play out at any moment. Incumbents get caught stuffing bribe money into their freezer or consorting with prostitutes. Planes crash. And there’s always the possibility of someone being caught in bed with a dead woman or a live goat.
Unexpected opportunities arise, but you can’t take advantage of them if you don’t have a candidate in place.
With that in mind, let’s see how well Republicans and Democrats have done in finding candidates for all 36 Texas congressional races:
U.S. Congressional Races Where Democrats Failed to Field a Candidate
U.S. Representative District 2: Republican Incumbent Ted Poe
U.S. Representative District 3: Republican Incumbent Sam Johnson
U.S. Representative District 4: Republican Incumbent Ralph Hall
U.S. Representative District 13: Republican Incumbent Mac Thornberry
U.S. Representative District 17: Republican Incumbent Bill Flores (in a seat that was held by Democrat Chet Edwards until 2010!)
U.S. Representative District 19: Republican Incumbent Randy Neugebauer
U.S. Representative District 25: Open seat, formerly Lloyd Dogget’s until he moved to the newly created 35th District following redistricting. No less than 12 Republicans have filed for this seat (including former Senate candidates Michael Williams, Roger Williams, and Charles Holcomb). 56% of the newly reformulated 25th District’s residents voted for McCain in 2008; that’s solidly, but not overwhelmingly, Republican. But not one Democrat bothered to run…
So that’s seven U.S. Congressional races where Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee National Chair for Recruiting and Candidate Services Allyson Schwartz, and, well, whoever the hell it is at The Texas Democratic Party in charge of recruiting candidates, were unable to find a single person out of approximately 688,488 citizens in each of those districts to run for the United States House of Representatives. Say what you want about Alvin Greene running for Senator in South Carolina, but at least he showed up, which Texas Democrats couldn’t even manage to do in almost one-fifth of U.S. Congressional races this year.
By contrast, Republicans only fell down on the job in one congressional district:
U.S. Congressional Race Where Republicans Failed to Field a Candidate
U.S. Representative District 29: Democratic incumbent Gene Green gets a pass. In a district that went 62% for Obama, any Republican was going to have an uphill race. But given that there are five districts even more heavily Democratic (the 9th, 16th, 18th, 33rd, and 35th) where Republicans fielded a candidate, this seems like a lost opportunity, especially for a Republican Hispanic candidate in a Hispanic district headed by an old white guy. (Granted, this didn’t work for Roy Morales in 2010, but I would have preferred that Morales file again and run a token campaign over no one running at all.)
All in all this is good news for Republicans. If I were a Democrat, I’d be mad at how thoroughly the state and national party fell down on the job of recruiting candidates.
A suggestion: All six Republican incumbents who haven’t drawn an opponent should each hold a fundraiser for Republican Incumbent Francisco “Quico” Canseco, who figures to have the toughest race of any incumbent this time around.
