Senate Republicans Block Landmark Voting Rights Bill In Significant Setback For Democrats As It Happened
- All 50 Republicans voted against advancing the legislation
- Manchin tells Chuck Schumer he will vote to advance legislation
- Senate Democrats to fall short of 60 votes needed to begin debate
- New Yorkers vote in Democratic primary for New York mayoral pick
Wed 23 Jun 2021 01.27 BST First published on Tue 22 Jun 2021 13.58 BST
Million Voters Registered In Texas After 2016 Raising Democrats’ Hopes Of Flipping Texas In 2020
October 13, 2020 / 9:22 AM / CBS News
Biden leads in Michigan, Nevada, tied in Iowa…06:04
Texas has seen one of the highest upticks in newly registered voters in the nation,with over 3 million people who registered after the 2016 election.
That means about 1 in every 5 voters in Texas in 2020 were not registered in 2016 and Democrats are betting the surge could help flip Texas this year.
As of Monday, Texas’ secretary of state lists more than 16.9 million registered voters in its database, a state record and a net gain of 1.8 million since 2016.
President Trump won the state by 807,179 votes in 2016. Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke lost his statewide race by 214,921 votes.
While registration gains ebbedin March and April, at the beginning of the pandemic, more than 585,000 new voters have registered since September 1.
The Census Bureau says Texas’ population has grown by 3.85 million since 2010, 2 million of whom are Hispanic.
Early voting in Texas kicks off Tuesday. More than 1.8 million Texans voted early in the March primaries, about 45% of the total turnout. Including mail votes, over half of Texans voted early or by mail during the primary.
Texans aren’t required to designate a party when they register, but Democratic operatives anticipate at least 60% of these new voters are Democrats because so many of them are young and from communities of color.
Adam Brewster and Kabir Khanna contributed reporting.
Republican Projected To Beat Democrat For Texas State House In Race Watched For 2020 Clues
WASHINGTON — A Republican candidate for a Texas state House seat beat his Democratic rival, in a special election Tuesday which had been closely watched for a glimpse as to just how competitive the delegate-rich state might be in the presidential election, according to unofficial results.
Gary Gates, a self-funded businessman, beat Democrat Eliz Markowitz, an education specialist, for the House District 28 seat, according to unofficial results. The margin, according to those unofficial results, was 58.05% to 41.95%.
The Republican State Leadership Committee tweeted that “Gary Gates defeated the entire national Democratic party tonight.”
Gates, speaking to supporters at around 9 p.m. Tuesday, said “They thought this was a seat they could flip,” according to The Texas Tribune.
Tuesday’s election was a runoff to replace Rep. John Zerwas, a moderate Republican who is not running for re-election.
In the November election, Markowitz, the only Democrat in the race, won 39.1 percent of the vote. Gates received 28.4 percent, while three other Republicans split the remainder of the vote.
The legislative stakes of the runoff in House District 28, a rapidly diversifying suburb of Houston, are relatively low.
Gates will most likely not even cast a single vote before they have to face re-election in November, as the Legislature does not meet this year. And even had Markowitz won, Texas Republicans would still have controlled the House by eight seats.
Is It Common For Democrats To Participate In The Republican Primary And Vice Versa
In short, no. According to Elizabeth Simas, a political science professor at the University of Houston who spoke about this with Texas Standard, cases of strategic voting don’t happen much in primary elections. “Certainly, there are people who do it … but we just don’t see it happening as much as there’s potentially this fear for it to happen,” Simas said.
In areas dominated by one party, especially rural areas, voters might cross party lines in the primary to have more of a say in their local races.
“In my county, all the local races are Republican. Judges, sheriff, district attorney,” Martha Mims, a Democratic voter who lives Williamson County, wrote in The Texas Tribune’s Facebook group, This is Your Texas. “If I want to have a say in local government, I have to vote in the Republican primary.”
Voters like Mims can do that, thanks to Texas’ open primary. Do you have more questions about voting in Texas? Submit them to our Texplainer series.
Disclosure: The University of Houston has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
Texas Early Voting Tops 2016 Total With More Than 9 Million Ballots Cast
- Texas has surpassed its total 2016 voter turnout with four days until Election Day, according to data released by state election officials Friday morning.
- Polling suggests Texas could be a battleground in 2020, as shifting demographics have given Democrats hope in the presidential race between President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
- Texas does not report party affiliation of early voters, making it difficult to predict how parties’ voter shares are shaping up so far.
Texas has surpassed its total 2016 voter turnout with four days before Election Day, according to data released by state election officials Friday morning.
Voters have cast more than 9 million ballots in person and by mail so far, setting a new record in the state. In the 2016 presidential election, 8,969,226 Texans voted, according to the state’s official tally.
The milestone reflects high turnout across the country for the presidential race between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden, as the coronavirus pandemic has created an unprecedented demand for early voting.
Since the last presidential election, Texas has gained about 1.9 million registered voters, The Texas Tribune reported. About 53% of registered Texas voters have cast their ballot in 2020 so far.
The state’s 38 electoral votes are considered a must-win for Trump. In 2016, Trump won Texas over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 9 points.
Markets and Politics Digital Original Video
Republicans Want To Change State Election Laws Heres How Theyre Doing It
Comparing the proposed law in Texas to the one that passed in Georgia reveals five key areas targeted since former President Trump’s defeat.
Pedestrians pass signs near a polling site in San Antonio on Feb. 28, 2020. | Eric Gay/AP Photo
06/05/2021 07:00 AM EDT
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Passing new election laws has been one of the top priorities for Republican state legislators in 2021 — and they are working from similar playbooks to tighten or restrict the old policies even in states with very different election systems.
The latest flashpoint in the GOP drive to change voting rules came in Texas, where Democrats temporarily blocked a sweeping new bill this week that touched many of the same voting policies that drew wide notice in Georgia earlier this year. Republicans across the country have proposed significant changes to their states’ election rules after former President Donald Trump promoted conspiracy theories and spread false claims that he’d been robbed of victory there and elsewhere by massive fraud.
Together, Texas and Georgia show which areas Republicans are focused on after Trump’s 2020 loss. Texas’ mail voting policies were already very tight, but both states sought to make their absentee policies stricter. Both states specifically targeted new voting policies piloted by big, blue counties in 2020. And Republicans in both states sought to impose new limits on election officials — and expose them to new criminal penalties for wrongdoing.
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They Call It Texodus: Why Some Texas Republicans Aren’t Running For Re
“The fundamentals in the district right now favor the Republicans,” said Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, Austin.
But the greater Fort Bend area tells a different story: Hillary Clinton won the county in 2016 by almost 7 percentage points, and O’Rourke beat Cruz in 2018 by 12 points. Texas Democrats point to census data suggesting that the electorate is more diverse than ever — residents of Fort Bend County are now roughly 32 percent white, 25 percent Latino, 21 percent Asian and 20 percent African American — suggesting that the rest of the county will soon be trending blue, too.
“The question about a district like this is, how are the changes of the composition of the electorate changing what our expectations should be,” Henson said.
Democrats have poured resources into the race, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of Markowitz. Forward Majority, a Democratic super PAC focused on flipping state houses, says it alone spent $400,000 on the race, including airing an ad that resurfaces allegations from 2000 that Gates abused his children. Child Protective Services ultimately dropped the case against him.
Even Democratic presidential candidates, otherwise preoccupied with their own primary race, have chimed in.
More Democrats Than Republicans Voted In Texas’ Super Tuesday Primary
- Pexels
Texas Secretary of State reports
- Progress Texas
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Texas Democrats Shatter Voter Turnout Record In Ominous Sign For Gop
The traditionally Republican stronghold could be a battleground state in 2020.
Democrats turned out in record numbers for Tuesday’s primary runoff in Texas, doubling turnout from 2018.
Nearly one million Democrats voted Tuesday, according to the secretary of state’s office, far surpassing the previous record of 747,000 set in 1994.
The record-setting turnout “showed that Texas Democrats are fired up and are ready for change,” Gilberto Hinojosa, chair of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a press release on Wednesday.
Texas has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Jimmy Carter carried the state 44 years ago. Republicans currently hold all major statewide offices, control both chambers of the state Legislature, occupy both U.S. Senate seats, and make up a majority of the state’s House delegation.
But election experts see an opportunity for Democrats in 2020.
“It’s pretty clear looking at the data that Texas is a swing state in the 2020 election,” CNN polling expert Harry Enten wrote on Sunday.
In June, Bob Stein, a political analyst for KHOU, said Republicans were in danger of losing the state.
“I’m not ready to predict Democrats will win Texas,” Stein said, “but it won’t surprise me” if it happens.
An average of state polls since late June show Donald Trump with a slim 0.2% lead over presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Beyond the race for the White House, Texas also has one of the nation’s most-watched Senate races.
- TAGS
Results Of The 2020 Republican Party Presidential Primaries
Republican National Convention
First place by first-instance vote
| Donald Trump |
Below is a detailed tally of the results of the 2020 Republican Party presidential primary elections in the United States. In most U.S. states outside New Hampshire, votes for write-in candidates remain untallied.
Primary elections and caucuses can be binding or nonbinding in allocating delegates to the respective state delegations to the Republican National Convention. But the actual election of the delegates can be at a later date. Delegates are elected at conventions, from slates submitted by the candidates, selected by the party’s state chairman or at committee meetings or elected directly at the party’s caucuses and primaries. Until the delegates are apportioned, the delegate numbers are by nature projections, but it is only in the states with nonbinding caucuses where they are not allocated at the primary or caucus date.
Results Of The 2016 Republican Party Presidential Primaries
Republican National Convention
| Donald Trump |
This article contains the results of the 2016 Republican presidential primaries and caucuses, the processes by which the Republican Party selected delegates to attend the 2016 Republican National Convention from July 18–21. The series of primaries, caucuses, and state conventions culminated in the national convention, where the delegates cast their votes to formally select a candidate. A simple majority of the total delegate votes was required to become the party’s nominee and was achieved by the nominee, businessman Donald Trump of New York.
The process began on March 23, 2015, when Texas SenatorTed Cruz became the first presidential candidate to announce his intentions to seek the office of United StatesPresident. That summer, 17 major candidates were recognized by national and state polls, making it the largest presidential candidate field for any single political party in American history. The large field made possible the fact that the 2016 primaries were the first since 1968 in which more than three candidates won at least one state.
Texas Smashed Early Voting Records Which Party Will Benefit
With a record number of ballots cast during the early voting period in Texas, candidates, strategists and political analysts are poring over the numbers, looking for clues as to which way the state might go on Election Day.
Roughly 57% of registered voters in the state voted early, shattering previous turnout records with one day of voting ahead. More than 9.6 million Texans voted early, a 47% increase from the number of early voters in the 2016 general election. About 735,000 more people voted early this year in Texas than voted in the entire 2016 presidential election, including on Election Day.
For decades, general election turnout in Texas has been among the lowest in the country as most statewide contests have been foregone conclusions. The last time a Democrat won statewide office was in 1996, and the last Democratic presidential candidate to carry Texas was Jimmy Carter in 1976.
But this year is different, at least according to Democrats who are optimistic that the surge in early voting signals greater numbers of Democrats turning out to the polls, raising the possibility of Democratic victories up and down the ballot. In addition to the state’s 38 electoral votes, control of the Texas House is also at stake. And Democrats are targeting several GOP-held congressional seats anchored in the suburbs of the state’s biggest cities, including four in the Austin area.
He added, “I think sometimes we get a little too cute with the data.”
Running the numbers
11th hour push
They Predicted A Trump Coup Attempt Hear What They Say Now
Thirty-five House Republican broke ranks Wednesday evening to support legislation that would establish an independent commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
- Liz Cheney of Wyoming
- Tom Rice of South Carolina
- Dan Newhouse of Washington
- Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington
- Peter Meijer of Michigan
- John Katko of New York
- David Valadao of California
- Tom Reed of New York
- Don Bacon of Nebraska
- Andrew Garbarino of New York
- Tony Gonzales of Texas
- Dusty Johnson of South Dakota
- David Joyce of Ohio
- Chris Smith of New Jersey
- Van Taylor of Texas
- Chris Jacobs of New York
- David McKinley of West Virginia
- Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska
- Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida
- Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa
Candidates Are On Ballot For Open Texas Congressional Seat
The front-runner in Saturday’s election is Susan Wright, who has been endorsed by Donald J. Trump and is the widow of Representative Ron Wright, who died of Covid-19 in February.
AUSTIN, Texas — Not long ago, Texas’ Sixth Congressional District seemed to be securely in Republican hands. Ron Wright, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, was poised to advance the G.O.P.’s agenda after he was elected in 2018.
But this year Mr. Wright, who had lung cancer, contracted the coronavirus and became the first member of Congress to die from Covid-19. His unexpected death led his wife, Susan Wright, to run for his seat, and she was expected to take her husband’s place in Washington with little pushback.
Instead, a field of 23 candidates crowded into Saturday’s special election, all competing for a spot in a likely runoff if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote.
Mrs. Wright, long considered the front-runner, is seeking to capitalize on a recent endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump to establish herself as the undisputed favorite among 11 Republicans, some of whom were also hoping to be anointed by the former president.
Ten Democrats led by Jana Lynne Sanchez, who ran against Mr. Wright in 2018, are tapping into a reservoir of Hispanic and African-American growth that has stirred hopes among party leaders in a district that Mr. Trump won by only three percentage points in the 2020 election.
The race also includes a libertarian and an independent.
The Republicans Who Are Primary Challenging Greg Abbott
TheDemocrats aren’t the only ones Gov. Greg Abbott has to worry about in 2022. Not all Republicans are happy with his leadership and some have already announced primary challenges. While Abbott’s popularity within the GOP means that a fellow Republican is unlikely to unseat him, primary challenges can still cause problems. An attack from his right flank could force Abbott to take positions that will make it harder for him to win over centrist voters in the general election, and it could also force him to expend resources that he would rather save for his Democratic adversary.
The Signal has put together a list of the Republicans who are challenging Abbott in the Texas GOP primary, which will occur in March next year. This list will be updated as more candidates enter the race.
Don Huffines, Former State Senator for District 16
Don Huffines announced on May 10 that he was running for governor. “Together we will finish the wall, lower our taxes, and protect our elections,” Huffines tweeted. “It’s past time to root out corruption in the Austin swamp.” Huffines is the first Republican with prior political experience to challenge Abbott.
Shortly after his loss he reportedly attended a meeting in a hangar with a group of Republicans alleging widespread voter fraud . Although these Republicans tried to convince him that there were signs of voter fraud in his election loss, Huffines ultimately decided to challenge the results.
Kurt Schwab, Military Veteran
Eyes Turn To Texas As Early Voting Surge Surpasses 2016
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas has already cast nearly 7 million votes, more than anywhere in America, and Glen Murdoch couldn’t get his ballot in fast enough after becoming a U.S. citizen this summer.
“I was champing at the bit,” said Murdoch, who moved to Austin from Australia shortly after President Donald Trump took office, and cast a ballot last week to vote him out.
It’s a rush to the polls in Texas like seldom seen before.
Ten days before Election Day, Texans have already cast as many early votes as they did in 2016 and are nearly 80% of the way toward hitting the total — both early and on Election Day — counted four years ago. The voting bonanza has some Democrats optimistic that decades of low turnout and undisputed Republican dominance may soon be a thing of the past.
But what that it all means for Texas is far from clear. Voters don’t register by party in the state, making it difficult to know which party or presidential candidate has an edge. Polls are unusually close in Texas, but neither President Donald Trump or Democrat Joe Biden has swung through Texas, focusing on clear battleground states instead like Arizona and Florida.
The striking numbers are across the board — in big cities that are solidly Democrat, in tipping-point suburbs where Republicans are losing ground and, to a lesser extent, in heavily Latino counties along the border. In Harris County, home to Houston, more than 1 million votes have already been cast.
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Texas Governor Vetoes Bill Protecting Dogs From Abuse
Sarah Betancourt
The governor of Texas has pulled a surprise move, vetoing a bipartisan bill that would have provided greater protections for dogs against human abuse.
The Republican governor, Greg Abbott, vetoed a bill on Friday that would have made unlawful restraint of a dog a criminal offense, sending animal rights activists and legislators on both sides of the aisle into a fray and spurring the hashtag #AbbottHatesDogs.
State senate bill 474, dubbed the Safe Outdoor Dogs Act, aimed to ban the use of heavy chains to keep dogs tethered. The bill had bipartisan support in the legislature, passing the house 83-32 and the senate 28-3.
In his veto, Abbott said state statutes already existed to protect dogs from animal cruelty, and the penalties proposed in the bill of $500 to $2,000, and jail time of up to 180 days, were excessive. The bill said that dog owners could have dogs outside but could not restrain them with short lines and chains or anything that could cause injury and pain to the dog.
Dog owners would have faced a $500 penalty for a first offense and class C misdemeanor, and the next penalty would have been a class B misdemeanor, for a fine of up to $2,000 and up to three months in jail.
Abbott said Texas was not a place for that kind of “micro-managing and over-criminalization”.
Read more:
April 2014 January 2015: Jeb Bush Leading The Polls
In April 2014, Robert Costa and Philip Rucker of The Washington Post reported that the period of networking and relationship-building that they dubbed the “credentials caucus” had begun, with prospective candidates “quietly studying up on issues and cultivating ties to pundits and luminaries from previous administrations”.
Though Bush often polled in the low double digits, he was considered a prominent candidate due to his high fundraising ability, record as governor of Florida and apparent electability. By November 2014, Bush had finally solidified his lead in the polls. Around this time there were talks of the possibility of Romney making a third run for the presidency. During this period from November 2014 until late January 2015, the speculation fueled Romney’s rise in many national polls as well, challenging Bush. Although Romney admitted he was entertaining the idea after initially declining, he ultimately reaffirmed his decision not to run on January 30, 2015.
Summary Of Changes To Election Dates And Procedures
Texas modified its absentee/mail-in voting, candidate filing, and early voting procedures for the November 3, 2020, general election as follows:
- Absentee/mail-in voting: Local election officials could not reject an absentee ballot due to a perceived signature mismatch unless the voter was given a pre-rejection notice of this finding and a “meaningful opportunity to cure his or her ballot’s rejection.” Return locations for absentee/mail-in ballots were limited to one per county.
- Candidate filing procedures: The petition deadline for independent candidates for non-presidential office was extended to August 13, 2020.
- Early voting: Early voting began on October 13, 2020.
For a full timeline about election modifications made in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, .
Senate Votes To Kill Debate On Voting Rights Bill
Republican senators voted against debating Democrats’ election and voting reform legislation, as expected.
Sixty votes are required to open debate on any measure under the Senate’s filibuster rules – and in a 50-50, evenly divided Senate – all 50 Republicans voted against advancing and debating the legislation.
“We can argue what should be done to protect voting rights and safeguard our democracy, but don’t you think we should be able to debate the issue?” said Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer.
It’s unclear where Democrats can go from here. Progressives have pushed to end the filibuster, which would allow them to vote and narrowly pass voting rights reform without Republican support. But moderate Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have rejected the idea.
Presidential Election Voting Record In Texas 1900
Between 1900 and 2016:
- Texas participated in 30 presidential elections.
- Texas voted for the winning presidential candidate 66.67 percent of the time. The average accuracy of voting for winning presidential candidates for all 50 states in this time frame was 72.31 percent.
- Texas voted Democratic 53.3 percent of the time and Republican 46.67 percent of the time.
Presidential Candidates On The Ballot In Texas
Ballotpedia identified 206 counties that voted for Donald Trump in 2016 after voting for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, in 34 states. Collectively, Trump won these Pivot Counties by more than 580,000 votes, and had an average margin of victory of 11.45 percent. The political shift in these counties could have a broad impact on elections at every level of government for the next four years.
Republican Party Primaries In Texas 2020
- Poll times: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Date of Texas presidential primary: March 3
| State political party revenue |
This page focuses on the Republican primaries that took place in Texas on March 3, 2020. for more information about the Democratic primaries.
Note that the dates and terms of participation for presidential preference primaries and caucuses sometimes differ from those that apply to primaries for state-level and other federal offices, which are the subject of this article. For more information on this state’s presidential nomination process, .
Early March 2016: Between Super Tuesdays
After Super Tuesday voting, but before winner-take-all voting was to begin, nine states, two territories and Washington, D.C. held their primaries and caucuses. During this period, 377 delegates were at stake. On March 3, 2016, the day before Carson dropped out of the race, Romney criticized Trump in a heavily publicized speech. Later that day, there was another GOP debate, which again featured Trump, Cruz, Rubio and Kasich. Carson did not participate in the debate, as he announced the suspension of his campaign the next day, narrowing the field to four; he subsequently endorsed Trump on March 10, 2016, the day after Fiorina endorsed Cruz. Meanwhile, as the prospect of a Trump nomination became more imminent, establishment Republicans pressured Romney or House Speaker Paul Ryan to enter the race; Romney had already decided not to enter the race on January 30, 2015, while Ryan announced he would not enter on April 13, 2016.
In the Virgin Islands caucuses on March 10, a slate composed wholly of uncommitted delegates was initially elected. However, the entire slate was later disqualified by the territorial party and was replaced by the elected alternates – two uncommitted, two for Rubio and one each for Cruz and Trump. The dispute later went to court. Also on March 10, there was a debate in Florida between the four surviving candidates, which was conducted in a more civil tone than prior debates.
March 5–12 results| Candidate |
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Delegates won:1 |
Republican Party Presidential Primaries
Republican National Convention
| Donald Trump |
Presidential primaries and caucuses of the Republican Party took place within all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories between February 1 and June 7, 2016. These elections selected the 2,472 delegates that were sent to the Republican National Convention. Businessman and reality television star Donald Trump won the Republican nomination for president of the United States.
On July 19, 2016, Trump and his running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, were officially nominated as the Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates at the Republican National Convention. Trump and Pence went on to defeat the Democratic ticket of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine in the general election on November 8, 2016.
May 2016: Trump As Presumptive Nominee
142 delegates were awarded between the Indiana primary and the final primaries in June; however, with Trump the only candidate remaining, Washington, Oregon, West Virginia and Nebraska became essentially uncontested, although Cruz and Kasich remained on the ballot. Trump won handily in West Virginia, Nebraska and Oregon, although Kasich received one delegate from West Virginia and five in Oregon, while Cruz took five in Oregon as well. The next week, Trump won decisively in Washington State, taking 76% of the vote and 41 of 44 delegates, with the other three uncommitted.
May 10–24 results| 11% | – |
After becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Trump said regarding the Republican primaries: “You’ve been hearing me say it’s a rigged system, but now I don’t say it anymore because I won. It’s true. Now I don’t care.”
On May 26, 2016, the Associated Press announced that Trump had passed the threshold of 1,237 delegates required to guarantee his nomination, thanks to unbound delegates from North Dakota who declared their support for Trump.
How Many People Voted Early In El Paso
According to numbers reported by the El Paso County Elections Department, 18,304 people voted in person during early voting. There are 14,007people who voted at early voting locations in the runoff compared to 4,297 in the Republican.
As of Friday, 8,310 people had returned ballots by mail —7,563 in the Democratic runoff and747 in the Republican.
The early voting numbers have not yet been finalized and could change to account for additional mail-in, curbside or provisional ballots.
There are 474,367total registered voters in the county, according to the elections department. Roughly 5.6% percent of registered voters voted early in the primary runoffs, based on the unofficial numbers from the department.
