Harris County, Bill White and the 2010 General Election

I'm always saying that 20-25% of the statewide vote comes from the Greater Harris County area. Not sure if I read that somewhere awhile back, or if it's because I know that figure holds true for other data points, such as the number of school age kids. Anyway, Jason Embry, with the Statesman, crunched the numbers, and got the same percentage:

But let’s look to the general election for a minute and make a couple of assumptions. If Houston Mayor Bill White wins the Democratic nomination, he will start with much higher name ID in the Houston area than anywhere else. So I added up the total votes for governor in 2006 in the 19 counties that make up the Houston media market, and I found about what I expected.

In that race, 23.3 percent of all the votes for governor came from the Houston television market — 1 million out of 4.3 million votes. That’s a pretty nice launching pad for White, who has been a very popular mayor. What we don’t know is how much his popularity inside the City of Houston extends to the rest of Harris County and the rest of that media market. Consider, for example, that Perry won Harris County in 2006 over a Houston Democrat, Chris Bell, although Bell was far less known than White and didn’t raise nearly the money that White is likely to raise.

I’m going to keep playing around with these numbers because, well, First Reading isn’t going to fill itself. Here’s one other one: In that 2006 general election for governor, 5.2 percent of all votes came from Travis County. How much can the Democratic nominee increase that number?

My subjective opinion is that Bill White is popular with Democrats in Harris County and in those 19 counties Embry refers to. I live in Fort Bend County, but I've always worked in the City of Houston, which is not unusual for folks who live in counties adjacent to Harris. The Hinterlanders are all very familiar with Mayor White. I'd be curious how much of the Democratic vote comes from the Houston media market. I think White will do very well with them, and the good news for him is that in some of those counties - Fort Bend being a prime example - the Democratic vote share is increasing.

In a general election with White vs. Perry, I think White gets some moderate R votes in the geographic area Embry describes, mostly because of Perry's faults - but also because White has gained their respect over the past six years. Make no mistake, though, the Republican machine will tear his mayoral record to shreds and the certainty of an upcoming bleak City of Houston budget situation will be blamed on White, whether it's deserved or not.

To pull together a win number, it's imperative that White does very well with Independents in the Greater Harris County region. I urge White to stomp around a lot in those areas, campaigning hard and not taking those folks for granted. There is still a gut reaction among non-Democrats in red suburban areas to pull that R lever, out of habit, fear, or lack of good messaging from D's (I'm very tempted to bold my messaging comment - that's how strongly I feel about it.) The last thing we need is a popular Houston area candidate running statewide and virtually ignoring the Greater Harris County area. There are too many votes there to take anything for granted.

On another note, be sure and click on that Jason Embry link above and read what Kinky Friedman has to say about better uses for Shami's millions. I don't agree with much that Kinky has to say, but he hits the nail on the head - or hits Shami on the head with a chi iron - on that one.