How can we convince Texans to vote?
Plus: Even in Uvalde the status quo wins big, a fork in discipline
Nationwide, the story of the 2022 midterm election was one of historic voter turnouts, people braving long lines and foiling attempts to suppress voting in Republican states. The result was no “Red Surge” as was widely predicted.
As a result, Democrats will keep control of the Senate and Republicans will have only a narrow margin (at best) in the House of Representatives.
The story in Texas, on the other hand, was that most voters just didn’t bother to go to the polls. As a result, Texans will suffer through the same government as it has for decades.
Oh, boy.
Mind you, this could be just what the majority of Texas voter really want, which is why they stayed in their recliners for roughly two weeks of early voting and Election Day itself.
That seems unlikely but we will never know for sure. Statewide offices remain with GOP and the Texas Legislature will have a few new faces but both Senate and House of Representatives will remain firmly in Republican hands.
The results in East Texas were not unique, lower voting totals than four years ago. This area is reliably Republican, and the low turnout makes that even more pronounced.
Behind the Pine Curtain, Smith County has the largest number of both registered voters and those who actually took the time to go to the polls. The numbers?
Just over 76,000 people voted, which was 7.6% lower than in 2018, when Beto O’Rourke was bested by Ted Cruz in his run for the U.S. Senate. That race was close
but the drop in turnout foretold what was going to happen this year in his race against Gov. Greg Abbott. He needed more votes than in 2018 and he got less.
But it could have been different. There are almost 154,000 registered voters in Smith County and just less than half of them voted.
The same trend was true across East Texas.
In Gregg County, only 44% of those registered voted, a drop of more than 8% from 2018.
In Nacogdoches County, about 48% of 39,000 registered voters cast ballots, down a whopping 11.4% from 2018.
In Angelina County, 45.4% of 54,000 of those registered voted, down 7.1 percent. Statewide, 47 percent of those registered to vote actually did so.
So how do you make people vote?
No one in Texas has quite figured that out yet.
Consider that this was a year with an unusual number of singular events that might have prompted people to vote. Texas passed strict new abortion laws including the draconian law that allows neighbors to sue neighbors who get abortions.
No matter how you feel about that law, it looks like it would prompt you to vote, either for those who supported it, or to oust them. That didn’t happen. Neither did voters here react much to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe vs. Wade.
Again, either side of the issue should have brought them out but: Crickets.
For that matter, voters here weren’t much moved by high gas prices or other inflationary concerns. No one seemed to care much in Texas about student loan forgiveness.
Texans don’t vote and East Texans certainly don’t buck the trend.
It is tough to blame new voting laws, even though they are foolish, because turnout has never been what it should be. A better culprit is the age-old attitude that, “My vote isn’t going to matter.” Texans seem to have fallen for that old canard, even while watching other states flip and actually change things.
Are we really thinking places like Georgia are that much more progressive than Texas?
If the issues on the table in this election won’t excite people, it is not clear what will.
The Democratic organizations in East Texas were committed and tried to get out the vote but it is surprising that people who support the same causes can be so reluctant to work together.
Those who want to change the paradigm have two more years to figure out just what can be done to change that, but that’s been true for decades now.
***
UVALDE COUNTY, where the deadliest (so far) mass school shooting in Texas occurred, voted to return Greg Abbott to the governor’s seat by a 2-1 margin. It wasn’t even close.
This, despite the fact that Abbott has essentially promised to do nothing, nada, zilch to make schools safer in light of increasing mass murders.
They must love their guns in Uvalde.
***
NOT EVERYONE SHOULD be entrusted with teaching children and an elementary school teacher in Houston is now facing felony charges for injury to a child for dragging a 5-year-old girl across the concrete.
Why? Because the girl refused to throw away a plastic fork.
This is one of the consequences of a dramatic teacher shortage in Texas — across the nation, really. Salaries might be one reason but you can’t overlook the fact that teachers now have to deal with the reality of active shooters on campus, with little help to prevent them.
***
If you find this newsletter interesting, please support the effort by subscribing. It is free.