Polling for Harris County: Primary Edition

CORRECTION: 182,001 Early Votes and Mail-in Ballots. Let's call the over-under at 400k for ballots cast.

Dunno if this is the official final number or what, but 168,277 Dem primary voters just via early voting. So much for my range of 125-150k for total primary votes. The only question that remains is if the usual 30% Early Vote ratio holds or if it leans more to the ratio we see in the General of 50%. Either way, that puts the range for total votes between 330-500,000. Something tells me the Precinct Caucuses are going to be a madhouse, making me feel all the better that I'll be skipping mine.

There's also some polling out there. So far, the big winner is Undecided.

County Judge (GOP)
Bacarisse - 34.3%
Emmett - 31.3%

County Judge (Dem)
Mincberg - 25.4%
Hassan - 6.7%

District Attorney (GOP)
Siegler - 20.6%
Lykos - 14.0%
Perry - 7.4%
Leitner - 6.0%

Not a whole lot there aside from Siegler's lead and Lykos' underperformance that surprises. But it gets even more interesting in some other polling questions.

» 50-41 ... Obama over Clinton in the Dem. Presidential race. Closer than I would have thought, but still leaves some room in the undecideds (or by missing the mark in the sample) for Obama to hit 60% in the county.

» 41.9-40.1 ... D over R in the question of voting for "County leadership." Sounds about right - close.

» 41.1-37.2 ... D over R in the question of voting for "local judges." Encouraging, to say the least.

» 47.2-43.9 ... Hillary over McCain in a hypothetical matchup in Harris County.
» 44.9-43.9 ... Obama over McCain in a hypothetical matchup in Harris County.

This is probably the most attention-grabbing set of numbers for me (Bernstein has the writeup on this aspect of the poll). Although I'm secure in my support of Hillary, even I'd have thought that an Obama nomination would translate into an onslaught in the major urban counties here. And hence, I'd have expected the prospect of a Dem tidal wave here if he were the nominee. Guess what ... it might be time to check that at the door. There's a lot of conventional wisdom that has gone through the grinder this season. The notion that Obama is the most popular thing since sliced bread probably ought to be among them. And the folks who bet heavily on the notion that Hillary can't possibly win due to some Arkansas cranks crying out "Vince Foster!" might want to have their own conventional wisdom checked at the same grinder.