Texas Precincts To Watch

Here are a couple of precincts that based on their demographic composition _could_ end up being “swing” precincts:

Harris County's precinct...(307 county delegates) City Hall.......Nassau Bay, 18100 Upper Bay Road, Houston

Travis County (312 county delegates) Sheriff's Office ....... at Hudson Bend, 3800 Hudson Bend Road, Austin

Comments

Marc, did you come up with that, uh, exhaustive list on your own? If so, I have the following questions:

1. Do you actually know anything about Texas politics?

1a. That is to say, do you have good reason to believe that the results from these precincts in particular might well be illustrative, or did you just pick some districts where you think the demographics look unpredictable?

2. What about their demographic composition makes them swing precincts?

2a. What exactly are we looking for? Turnout? Exit polls?

2b. If turnout, what has been the early turnout so far at those precincts, and how does that compare to the last contested nominating process? Oh wait, there hasn't been one since Texas became a Republican state

2c. If exit polls, can you please provide us to a link of publicly available precinct-level polling? What kind of MoE do you expect from a sample of a few dozen voters? Do you seriously believe such numbers are useful?

3. Do you seriously think two out of Texas's 18,000 precincts will provide any statistically meaningful guidance or insight into what the rest of the state is doing?

Posted by Jeff Larson | March 4, 2008 12:49 PM

I grew up near Nassau Bay: to the extent it isn't upper-class, it's exclusively NASA workers, mainly Republican.

I had to look up Hudson Bend, even though I live in Austin now: as I thought, it's basically Lakeway, an enclave of (again) upper-class whites, a good 12 miles west of downtown Austin. It's probably more Democratic than the Nassau Bay precinct.

Now if somebody could explain why these are important...

Posted by norbizness | March 4, 2008 2:52 PM