An Interesting Texas Phenomenon...

An interesting phenomenon has come to light in the Texas primary results. One election procedure-watcher who e-mails me with frequent updates on election process and accuracy issues sent out an alarming-sounding missive after looking at the Texas results, county by county. She thought she’d found some kind of fraud when she noticed that there were zero-vote counts in 21 counties for the Republican primary.

It turned out that not all Texas counties hold primaries for both parties, so that result was not incorrect, just, well, Texas.

What WAS interesting, however, was that in those counties where there was no Republican primary, the Democratic vote count was quite different than it was elsewhere in Texas. (Remember, Texas allows crossover voting in either primary, so Republicans not voting in a primary of their own could legally vote in the Democratic balloting.)

Here’s what Kathy Dopp noticed on second glance:

In the 21 counties where there was no Republican
primary, the vote shares for Clinton and Obama
were:

Clinton 69.4%

Obama 24.6%

as opposed to Clinton and Obama vote shares in
the other counties which had both Republican and
Democratic primaries:

Clinton 49.7%

Obama 48.7%

This is a huge margin swing of 43.8%!

What seems to be staring her in the face is the reason why the polls didn’t pick up Clinton strength in the same way the election returns did on Tuesday night. Republicans were voting for Clinton as either a mess-you-up or as their only option when unable to vote for McCain.

Leave it to Texas to really screw with the Democratic vote!

UPDATE-3/10/08 ...and now we hear that Bill himself went on Limbaugh's show the day of the TX/OH primaries! (see Memeorandum for Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish)

Comments

[Kathy]

I think we can thank Rush for that and I'm sure many Republicans would rather see Hillary on the ticket and then McCain will win the election. I'm 51 and have always been a democrat but I WILL NEVER vote for Hillary. She is not honest and will not release her taxes. Something smells bad and she is playing dirty politics. I've also seen Republicans giving to her campaign. It's shameful that it has all come to this in this country. I'm ashamed to be an American.