Early Morning Election Reax

Kuff offers a few. Key among them:

As bland as everyone thought the race has been so far, I expect the runoff to be nasty. They always are. This is basically a Democratic primary race, and you know how those get. Plus, while I can't speak for the candidates themselves, I get the distinct impression that Parker's staff and Locke's staff don't much like each other. I'm just wondering where the money will come from for Round Two, especially for Parker. (Annie's List has already sent out an email on her behalf.)

It could be an interesting five weeks. And not just with regard to the Mayor's race. The Controller's race has a lineup that might be even more interesting. MJ Khan is probably the big surprise of the night. I had his ceiling pegged at about 15% ... maybe 20%. He ended up with 32.5%. And given that Ronald Green did fairly well above the 27-30% baseline for African-American candidates, it'll be an interesting map to see where the votes came from for all involved.

As far as the head-to-head comparison, it's an R-vs-D matchup, but with some twists. Sue Lovell had her plans pegged to Pam Holm being the lead dog in this hunt. Not only did she miss that call, she's tied up with the formality of a runoff that she should win, but lose some quality holiday time on. I dare say she shouldn't spend her time arguing with community leaders in the A-A neighborhoods. All that to say that Ronald's persistent headache of Lovell's machinations should be otherwise tied up this election.

As for Khan ... he's the Republican that Republicans don't like him much. At least they haven't so far. Maybe that'll change when the sun rises on Wednesday. Remind me again what happened when Green ran against a Republican that Republicans didn't like all that much? I don't think Khan can be dismissed very easily, however. He'll have the money to campaign and Green won't bother to raise any even though he totally could if he decided to. It's worth watching to see if Khan decides to hit the mute button on this runoff and write a big fat check to cover the next five weeks. He could if he wanted to. But if he only writes a small check to cover a modest mail & ad budget, Green might have a shot if Locke has a strong runoff.

Now ... about that Mayoral runoff. My later prediction was admittedly something of a cop-out in that I figured it would be a close pack of the Top Three. Not that I was off on that count, but proximity allows for more rationalization of getting the ordering wrong. I'll take it. I'm going to rationalize the points where I got wrong by suggesting that the primary error was in picking the low-end of GOP support for Morales. I said 10, he got around 20. My sense is that that came totally out of Peter Brown's hide and that pretty much makes up the entire different. In the end, I really didn't get Locke's percentage all that wrong ... just a few big things that went on around the other campaigns.

All in all, I can't complain with the result. Once more, Peter Brown's lasting electoral legacy is to be an underperforming empty suit on Election Day. He lost a winnable race against Shelley back in 2003, he barely won against a nobody named Roy Morales in 2005, and in 2009, he actually lost Election Day to that same nobody named Roy Morales. I do honestly wish him well if he heads back to the drafting board, or even in full retirement. Martha recently highlighted some of the campaign videos from points earlier, including one of Peter bragging on his kids. I believe I've only met his son, Chris, and I can say I'll be eagerly awaiting to see him get involved with electoral politics as soon as possible.

As for the At Large runoffs, I expected both Sue and JoJo to make the cut tonight, but about the only real surprise I see on the board is that the spread between Jones and Christie is tight enough to make that an interesting runoff. As much as I'd love to see Sue sweat out a runoff, the spread between her and Burks is substantial and Sue nearly eked out a win if only for 1-2,000 more votes. I've dealt with Andrew Burks a few times and he's a nice enough guy ... just not a tough enough campaigner to worry about. Still, Sue might want to try making some friends for a change over the next five weeks. JoJo, on the other hand, is in severe danger of being booted off the island once more.

In the open AL-1 seat, I am surprised that Costello only managed to pull down 23.6% of the vote. Even though the spread between him and Derr is close, Costello should be favored to win. But when you come out of round one like that, it's not exactly a smooth five weeks for the runoff. Run scared, Costello. I can't say I'm surprised by Herman Litt's poor showing. There were a lot of things Litt did better in his 2005 race for District C that he didn't accomplish here. Anywho ... I'll be voting for Costello in December.

In AL-4, my sense was that Bradford would win outright, but any good sense of justice would dictate that he should have had to work a bit harder at it. Noel Freeman struck me as a decent type of person I'd like to see on council, but his wasn't the type of campaign to push Bradford to the limit. Whatever ... start the Bradford for Mayor in 2015 campaign. We all know it's coming.

Starting off the district runoffs with my backyard, let's just say I expect to be involved and I'll defer detailed comment for the time being. Maps and analysis will be forthcoming as soon as I've got numbers to play with.

District A probably could have gone a little better for Lane Lewis. A win by Stardig would certainly be considered performing to form in District A, but it seems to me that Lane had an opportunity there that didn't materialize.

As for District G ... Pennington's win is a bit to form here. It'll be interesting to see what type of council member he is in January.

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On a demographic sidenote, I'd like to enter a datapoint to suggest new information for interpreting Hispanic votes in elections. Martha highlighted some demographic info making the rounds that pegged the Hispanic vote in City of Houston at 9% based on a cross-reference of the Texas Democratic Party's VAN system. Rick Rodriguez won 14% of the vote citywide last night. In 2007, Joe Trevino got 19% of the vote, though it was suggested that his tenure as a school principle might account for some crossover support.

Does anyone think for a minute that what we have isn't so much a problem of getting Hispanic voters out than counting Hispanic voters where they live?

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Around the state, I'm a bit surprised that Prop 4 didn't do better than it did. But I also think that it was a stretch to sell the funds available for additional Tier One schools as a freebie. Not sure if that played a role or whether voters just saw it as another pleading for more money on the ballot in a year when that was a tough sell. I'll map this out later, but the quick view is that it looks like it carried in a lot of big counties, college counties, Dem counties, and maybe a few more. Ninety-six counties passed it based on the incomplete numbers I dumped into a spreadsheet earlier. There might be a few more by now. The bum steers of the crowd should be easily placed to most of the geographically inclined: Burleson, Leon, King, Madison, Houston, Freestone, Milam, Mills ... and Brazos counties.

I have to admit, I'm taken back a bit by the snub from Brazos. I instinctively checked to see how Travis County voted to see if my anti-T-sip cause would have a new fire added to the torch. Alas, they voted right this time. But I've rarely had good cause to loathe the Aggies. This changes things, folks. What's the odds of us scheduling them next season in football? A little vengeance is in order.