Local GOP tickets did better than president
President-elect Joe Biden and down-ballot Republicans in Bexar County have at least one thing in common: They’re more popular than President Donald Trump in the county’s GOP strongholds.
Republican candidates in four competitive county, legislative and congressional races analyzed by the San Antonio Express-News all racked up more votes in the Nov. 3 election than the sitting president did.
Biden outperformed Trump in those same districts, flipping neighborhoods that went for Trump in 2016.
The former vice president had strong crossover appeal and was able to peel off moderate Republicans and conservative-leaning independents alienated by Trump, political strategists from both parties said. But Bi
den’s crossover appeal didn’t extend to Democrats lower on the ballot.
“I think a lot of what happened was the Republicans self-regulating,” veteran Democratic strategist Colin Strother said. “What we saw was Republicans saying, ‘We’ve had enough.”
But once they voted for Biden, those voters turned around and cast ballots for a slate of GOP candidates.
The likely reason: Voters believed the down-ballot Republicans were focused on businessfriendly policies rather than on the culture-war issues of the Trump era.
Statewide, no down-ballot Republican underperformed Trump, analysts said.
Voters “may have swung away from the Republican party for the presidential race, but they came right back underneath for the down-ballot races,” said Thomas Marks, a local GOP strategist.
That meant Biden’s gains in conservative pockets of Bexar County didn’t translate into wins for Democrats eager to pick up congressional and state House seats.
‘Defunding’ a millstone?
Figuring out what drove so many voters to split their ballots could be key in Texas Democrats’ deliberations over why they made no electoral gains despite a hefty war chest, record voter turnout and Trump’s presence on the ballot.
Among the possible culprits: the abolition of straight-ticket voting, which allowed Texas voters to cast their ballots for a party’s entire slate at one stroke. Instead, voters had to make individual selections for each of the races on the ballot.
Democrat candidates also struggled to neutralize Republican messaging that the Democratic Party had made a drastic turn to the left and stood to “defund the police” if given a majority in the State House or in Congress, analysts said.
“Defund the police” was a rallying cry adopted by some progres
sives in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in May. It was shorthand for proposals to redirect some police funding to mental health, housing and other community services.
“The question is how many (ticket-splitting voters) are there and what are the things that led them to vote for Joe Biden but not to carry that same voting behavior all the way down the ballot,” said Manny Garcia, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party. “And that takes a lot of deep analysis.”
One school of thought holds that Biden’s success with moderate Republicans was a one-time phenomenon driven by opposition to Trump. Those same voters proceeded to vote Republican in other races because they’re, well, Republicans.
“At the end of the day, the only time you’re going to pull those Republicans off is when you have someone like Trump, who’s really not a Republican,” said Laura Barberena, an experienced Democratic campaign operative.
Nor were there enough BidenRepublican voters statewide to deliver Texas’ 38 electoral votes to the former vice president. Trump won the state by nearly 6 percentage points.
Still, Biden’s showing was the
strongest by a Democratic presidential candidate in Texas since then-President Bill Clinton in 1996. Clinton lost the state to Bob Dole by less than 5 percentage points on his way to an easy reelection victory nationwide.
No Democratic presidential contender has won Texas since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Biden’s gains
Biden made inroads in neighborhoods inside Loop 410 on the North and Northeast sides, historically conservative parts of town.
He also won the suburb of Alamo Heights by 8 percentage points. Four years ago, Democrat Hillary Clinton won Alamo Heights by a mere 4 votes.
Trump held onto nearby Terrell Hills, though Biden reduced his margin of victory there by 8 percentage points, compared with 2016.
Biden bested Trump by about 1,500 votes in Republican state Rep. Steve Allison’s District 121 — which covers the Northeast Side, along with Alamo Heights, Olmos Park and Terrell Hills.
In Bexar County’s Precinct 3 on the North Side — typically held by a lone conservative on Commissioners Court — Biden won by more than 2,000 votes.
Biden also outperformed his fellow Democrats in areas with
competitive congressional races that ultimately went Republican.
The president-elect won the Bexar County portions of Texas’ 21st and 23rd congressional districts by 4,300 votes and 7,200 votes, respectively. Republicans won both of those congressional seats.
Down-ballot dominance
Despite Biden’s gains, downballot Republicans in key races proved more popular than Trump did among Bexar County voters.
In fending off a challenge from Democrat Celina Montoya, Allison collected 4,000 more votes in his state House district than did Trump.
A former board president of the Alamo Heights Independent School District, Allison has longstanding ties in his district — where he’s known as a moderate in the mold of former Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, Allison’s predecessor.
Montoya, who also ran against Allison in 2018, closed the gap slightly this year. But a Democratic Party-wide moratorium on in-person campaigning, block-walking and door-knocking because of the coronavirus prevented further gains, said Bert Santibañez, Montoya’s campaign manager.
“When you see a district like this where Allison is well-known,
he’s been in the district a long time, people know him personally and Celina can’t go knock and meet people at their doorstep, I think that already is a disadvantage,” Santibañez said.
Public relations guru Trish DeBerry proved more popular than either Trump or Biden in her bid for Precinct 3 county commissioner. DeBerry, a Republican, outperformed Trump in the North Side precinct by 11,155 votes.
In winning re-election, Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Roy outperformed Trump by about 1,800 votes among Bexar County voters in his 21st congressional district, which stretches from San Antonio northeast to Austin and north and west into the Hill Country.
‘Most normal thing’
Republican Tony Gonzales collected 1,830 more votes than Trump in the Bexar County portions of Texas’ sprawling 23rd congressional district. Gonzales defeated Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones in territory that Biden won.
The congressional seat had been seen as Ortiz Jones’ to lose after she mounted a strong challenge in 2018 to Republican incumbent Will Hurd. Ortiz Jones lost that election by less than 1,000 votes.
Countywide, Trump gathered 68,000 more votes than he did in 2016. But his share of the overall vote in Bexar was the same as it was four years earlier — about 40 percent.
Down-ballot Republicans benefited from Trump’s turning out his base in greater numbers.
The president’s underperformance compared with Republicans on the same ticket makes sense, given that those candidates weren’t as divisive as Trump, said Craig Murphy, a longtime GOP consultant who served as spokesman for Allison’s campaign.
“Those people are not controversial in the way Trump was, so it’s the most normal thing in the world,” Murphy said.