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March 06, 2008
Texas Primary Storm Passes
We survived. The ballots have been cast, the caucuses held, and the national press has packed up and moved on. The 2008 Texas Presidential Primary tornado touched down and dramatically impacted the state, as the rest of the nation (and world) looked on.
On the Republican side, Texas helped officially lock up the presidential nomination for Arizona Senator John McCain, and at the end of the evening his chief remaining rival - Mike Huckabee - exited the race. Just under 1.4 million Texans voted in the Republican primary, double the number who voted in 2004.
On the Democratic side, Texas was ground zero in a titanic struggle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It was the only close contest of the four around the country decided on Tuesday, and it basically ended up a draw. Nearly 2.9 million Texans voted in the Democratic primary, shattering the state record of 2.1 million set back in 1972, when this was still a one-party Democratic state. Clinton eeked out a narrow popular vote victory, while Obama looks like he will end up with a small delegate advantage based on the complicated system of awarding primary delegates, in addition to his victory in the caucus portion of the election, where one-third of the delegates were designated.
Needless to say Texas, like Ohio, was a must-win state for Senator Clinton, and she can make at least a partial claim to that effect after Tuesday, allowing her to go on. Her modest combined net delegate take (less than 10) from the evening's four contests, however, did not significantly erode Obama's advantage of 100 or so. In other words, the Clinton campaign's death-defying Tuesday night performance largely halted calls for her to drop out, and certainly gave her candidacy some much-needed momentum. Her fundamental position, however, did not change. Clinton remains behind Barack Obama in both delegates and the popular vote count, and is running out of time to catch him. More on that in a future post.
The unprecedented explosion in turnout no doubt also had a profound effect on down ballot race across the state. Thankfully, U.S. Senate candidate Rick Noriega was able to avoid a runoff against three minor candidates and sew up the Democratic nomination. Tight races in a number of Democratic and Republican primary state house contests resulted in a pretty good night for Speaker Tom Craddick. Here in Harris County, one "Craddick D" went down, while another was returned to office after being defeated in 2006.
Nearly 410,000 ballots were cast in the Democratic primary in Harris County, five times the number cast in 2004. This much larger, much less locally focused electorate made for a most unpredictable result for down ballot local candidates, particularly in judicial races. Simply having first position on the ballot, for example, seemed to be worth quite a bit in many of these races. Not necessarily an ideal way to choose judges for the bench, but that's the way it is.
Evening precinct conventions were hugely attended, and while there were some reports of difficulties at some of them, for the most part this potentially catastophic process ran very smoothly, which is a credit to the local Democratic Party and scores of very dedicated volunteers.
It has been an mind-boggling, exhilirating few weeks in Texas politics. Don't know about you, but we're pooped.
Posted by houtopia at March 6, 2008 07:16 PM