Harris County is on the verge of turning blue, like Dallas County did in 2006. Republicans are concerned.
The Houston Chronicle recently conducted a poll of Harris County, which found that voters in Harris County favor Obama by 7 and Noriega by 13. Kuff points out tha County Judge and District Attorney races were the only county races polled. The poll indicates Asian Americans will help Democrats win races in Harris County:
A combined minority turnout above 40 percent could add to the advantage for local Democratic contenders. Eight-five percent of blacks, 60 percent of Asian-Americans, 54 percent of Hispanics and 28 percent of non-Hispanic whites in the survey said they favor Democrats in county leadership elections.
Ten percent of the 602 voters surveyed said they registered to vote for the first time this year. The reason most often cited for registering now was “I recently turned 18,” the minimum voting age. And among those youngest new voters, the overwhelming majority were Democrat-leaning Hispanics and Asian Americans.
A reason cited less often for registering for the first time was, “I never paid attention to elections before this year.” This group strongly favored Republican candidates.
I wish the poll had included the District Clerk race, in which a Republican Asian American may become the first elected Asian American county-wide. While she is the incumbent, she was appointed – not elected. I wonder if she’ll survive the tax scandal her charitable foundation is facing.
Ed Emmett may well retain his position as County Judge. If Harris County goes blue but he stays in office, it will be because of Hurricane Ike. He had quite a bit of free air time, and he didn’t bungle the aftermath as poorly as those operating the state and national governments.
Emmett is not all rainbows and unicorns. He may have used county equipment for his campaign.
He also finally introduced an ethics plan for the county government with two weeks before the election. In their debate, Mincberg fiercely attacked Emmett.
Mincberg has some good ads:
This ad was surprising at first, but with a little more distance from Ike, quite good:
His radio jingle is a turn-off for me, but I’m not a fan of such music. At least the vocals aren’t as painful as they could be:
The race for Harris County Sheriff has taken a bizarre turn. Adrian Garcia, Houston City Councilman and endorsee of Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Unions and Houston Chronicle, has been under attack for marijuana use in his youth. The ads were pulled; hopefully the damage will be blowback on his opponent.
Garcia needs to win. Thomas has turned over the Sheriff’s Office to ICE, which only serves to discourage civilian cooperation with police. And the Harris County Sheriff’s Office is the first local law enforcement agency in the nation with automatic fingerprint checking with the IDENT system, a massive database in the Department of Homeland Security, used to further connect ICE with the Sheriff’s Office.
Diane Trautman received the endorsement of the Chronicle in her race for Harris County Tax Assessor, which is also the voter registrar. This creates all sorts of problems when a Republican holds the office.
And don’t forget all the judges’ races. These are real judges, unlike the County Judge, who heads the Commissioners Court, which is an executive-legislative body like a Board of Supervisors. Bob Stein thinks the Democrats will pickup a number of seats on the bench.
- Justin Gillenwater
