The results are in for all but 2 of 8,634 precincts in the Texas Republican gubernatorial primary: incumbent Rick Perry got 51%, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison 30% and Debra Medina 19%. In my blopost last night, I looked at the early voting returns in each of the state’s four largest metropolitan areas and in the rest of the state. Let me update that with the final figures now available. I’ll show the vote totals and percentages for each of the candidates in each area.
Perry Hutchison Medina Total
TEXAS 754,789 51 448,034 30 274,101 19 1,476,924
DFW 180,264 47 117,484 31 86,522 23 384,270
Houston 173,963 60 76,743 26 41,084 14 291,790
San Antonio 56,967 50 36,901 33 19,043 17 112,911
Austin 50,034 49 27,586 27 23,513 23 101,133
Remainder 293,561 50 189,320 32 103,939 18 586,820
On election day Perry ran slightly behind his performance in the early voting, but the patterns are similar. Debra Medina, who refused to disassociate herself with 9/11 truthers, ran best in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin areas. Hutchison, who grew up in metro Houston and has been based in Dallas, ran best in metro San Antonio and outside the big metro areas. Perry had no particularly great appeal in rural areas but clearly did in metro Houston. Without metro Houston, he would have gotten only 49% of the vote and would have faced a runoff with Hutchison April 13—a very different political situation from what obtains today.
How does turnout compare with previous contests? The following tables show the Republican and Democratic turnout in recent years, with the lead contest identified.
Republican Democratic
2010 governor 1,476,924 679,877
2008 president 1,362,322 2,874,986
2006 governor 627,163 508,602
2004 president 687,615 839,231
2002 governor 620,463 1,003,388
2000 president 1,126,757 786,890
1998 governor 596,839 492,419
1996 president 1,019,803 921,256
1994 governor 557,340 1,036,944
1992 president 797,146 1,482,975
1990 governor 855,231 1,487,260
1988 president 1,014,958 1,767,045
1986 governor 544,719 1,096,552
1984 president 319,839 none
1982 governor 265,851 1,317,814
The long-term trend is clear: Texans, who can vote in either party’s primary, have been increasingly choosing to vote in the Republican primary. But 2008 was a huge exception: the fierce contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton brought out a record number of Democrats, more than 1 million more than in any primary since 1982. Less than one-quarter chose to vote in the Democratic primary yesterday. That number can be explained partly by the widespread and accurate perception that frontrunner Bill White, the former mayor of Houston, had no serious competition. Even so, the percentage choosing the Democratic rather than the Republican primary seems to have been an all-time low. White has the potential to be a serious candidate in the general election. But if so, he will be running well ahead of where his party is in Texas today. Republican turnout this year, in contrast, was higher than ever before.
