Posted on 12/12/2006 6:08:52 PM PST by CharlesWayneCT
Didn't find a live thread for the texas election results.
As of 9:07 EST, the race is as follows (mostly "early" election numbers):
----------------------------------------------- RACE NAME PARTY EARLY VOTES PERCENT TOTAL VOTES PERCENT U. S. Representative District 23
Henry Bonilla - Incumbent REP 14,013 47.81% 16,675 44.86%
Ciro D. Rodriguez DEM 15,298 52.19% 20,495 55.14% --------------- ---------------
Total Votes Cast 29,311 37,170
Precincts Reported 98 of 267 Precincts 36.70% --------------------------------------------
(Excerpt) Read more at 204.65.107.84 ...
Yes, this would be Breaking News.
Now let's hope The Good People of Texas voted Republican.
This race is over another dem for Pelosi.
It seems like the Gop base has stayed home permanently and the independents are now dem voters.
Thank Kennedy of the supreme court for another dem seat.
Bonilla's old seat would have sent him to congress. That seat had voted 63 percent for bush this one voted 57 percent for bush and was more hispanic.
This country has gone so far left it is scary. A left winger like ciro doing so well just shows how this country's politics are closer to socialism in south america than conservatism.
Bring on the amnesty and unions.
With the youth vote, illegals, immigrants, liberal media this country will never have conservative leadership again.
Well, don't panic just yet, I don't even know if the polls are closed yet, this is mostly just the results for all the early ballot voting that took place over the last two weeks.
8:19 pm:
Henry Bonilla REP 19,321 42.72%
Ciro D. Rodriguez DEM 25,907 57.28%
Ciro won the early voting by 9 percent not a good sign if you are bonilla.
I didn't like the susa polls.
They had bonilla leading by 4 but hispanics only making up 36 percent of the vote which was way off. This new district is overwhelmingly hispanic and their vote share is far greater than 36 percent.
Bonilla should have spent his money in the primary. Gop still had the house and his name id was the highest.
What I take out of this disastrous election cycle is that dems have a huge advantage.
Dems vote for dems, independents vote for dems 2 to 1 and FAR too many gop vote for blue dogs who put nancy pelosi in power.
When dems kick out all the gop in the northeast you can't have gop voting for blue dogs throughout the rest of the country.
Unless republicans all start voting for republicans and turn out dems will crush the gop and this includes Hillary. Anyone that thinks hillary isn't going to be the next president is foolling themselves.
The republican party has gone so far left it is scary. (fixed)
We need to raise the voting age to 40.
Bonilla got 48.6% in the 11/8 election, and 6 Democrats together got 48.7% -- it makes no sense for Bonilla to get a much lower percentage now, so this must be a unrepresentative bunch of precincts, which often happens in the early returns.
Prior banned Troll spreading gloom and doom. Get out.
It would appear that the Republicans did really not want to pick up this seat.
SUSA's 2nd poll had 39% Hispanics, and picks Bonilla to get 51%. According to the registry of voters, 35% of voters in THIS CURRENT DISTRICT were Hispanic in the 11/02 and 11/04 General elections (though they were voting in different districts back then).
I expect the 35% is too low an estimate now, because some Hispanics will have re-registered now that Rodriguez is running, but I'll be surprised if it's higher than the low 40's.
The overall population of the district is 65% Hispanic, but that includes lots of kids and lots of people who are not registered to vote -- Hispanics are much less likely to be registered to vote.
A very difficult district to poll -- since people don't know which district they're in because of the redistrictings, you have to use addresses, which means you can only call voters with listed phone numbers -- if voters with unlisted numbers vote differently the poll will be biased.
SurveyUSA did well in the 11/06 Congressional elections -- average error of 3.3 spread points in 30 races (27 of 30 winners picked, 28 of 30 within margin of error). This is a particularly tough district, but it's hard for me to see Bonilla doing worse than he did in the general election last month, when he came within 1.4% of a majority.
"Why the hell did President Bush not go down to San Antonio to campaign for Bonilla?:
Probably because the President has given up on the Republican party. We are entering a new era of the "New Tone" now since the Rats are about to run the show.
A special election is all about base turnout. You can throw out the regular election results. Bonilla had 57K in November, but likely won't get close to that today. I wouldn't be surprised if this holds. I hope it doesn't, but the data I heard about before today wasn't encouraging.
This is the district most affected earlier this year when the courts ruled certain congressional districts did not meet the standards of the Voting Rights Act. Translated, that means there weren't enough Hispanic Democrats in the district, as the district was already electing a Hispanic.
So, Pub precincts in north San Antonio were removed, and Dem precincts in south San Antonio were added to the district. Rodriguez was the congressman from a neighboring district, who was unseated two years ago in the Dem primary by Henry Cuellar.
In past elections, the late boxes would come in for Bonilla. Tonight, it looks like the lines are going to defeat him.
That's a bad thing.
I can't see Henry Bonilla losing this...he's won all the important counties before.
You, unfortunately, aren't accounting for the "risen dead" vote. /s
I agree, however, that it doesn't sound quite right. :-/
I was working out of town during the early voting and today so I didn't get to vote. My girlfriend (used to be my ex-wife) couldn't vote either and my son is at border patrol academy so he couldn't vote either.
That would have been 3 votes for Bonilla, but doesn't look like it would haved mattered as he is losing big. Personally i think he ran a lousy campaign and never had a chance.
Some people here are writing this off too early although one election official said that turnout on the far Northwest side (republican precincts in S.A. still left w/in the new boundaries) was surprisingly light. If so, YIKES.
8:54 CT:
Henry Bonilla REP 24,077 42.75%
Ciro D. Rodriguez DEM 32,243 57.25%
George P. is great but he is not the President. The President has done very well with Hispanics in Texas ever since 1994 and now he decides he will not come to the help of a fellow Texas Republican?
Bonilla's a goner Charles. Bexar County is dem country.
AP just called it for Rodriguez. Bonilla to concede shortly.
Not necessarily...from what I hear the GOP has run away from Pres. Bush...so I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Bonilla told him not to come down..
So..if he loses...tough cookies...all of the GOP politicians that have run away from Pres. Bush over the war aren't worth voting for anyway.
not good.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA121206.voter.e-n.2eb2e45.html
AP: Rodriguez defeats Bonilla
I am sorry to see Bonilla go. Don't know what is going on. How can the people choose Rodriguez over Bonilla.
9:04pm:
Henry Bonilla REP 27,285 44.19%
Ciro D. Rodriguez DEM 34,456 55.81%
Republicans often do poorly in these month-later elections, it's like we just don't have it in us to show up again.
However, it is funny to set up election rules that SEEM to be better (not allowing someone with less than 50% of the vote win an election), but which in fact lead to a person winning the election with even FEWER votes.
It is unlikely the democrat will end up with more votes than Bonilla had in the general election.
Just said on the news that Bonilla will concede. I'm more than upset about this one. Bonilla was safe until redistricting. It was a tough race because of being right before the holidays and people being too preoccupied with other things. Plus I heard the Dems brought a lot of people in from DC to help Rodriguez's campaign. I'm not sure what the Republicans did for Bonilla.
Stay at home, elect a Dem. Morons.
The dems dumped a million into the race the last week I think. At the minimum.
9:09pm:
Henry Bonilla Inc REP 28,398 44.62%
Ciro D. Rodriguez DEM 35,239 55.38%
Major DITTO. Thanks, Tom Delay for helping get W. Texas the shaft AGAIN. Now we lose another effective (South)West Texan representative. Go ahead, FReepers, flame away. I'm going in the kitchen for a 5th Crown & water anyway.
You cannot win a race when you are outspent and I am sure the Democrats spent many times the amount of money that was spent by the Republicans.
Tonight we lose a good one.
I'm sick of this.
What the hell is wrong with people?!
Bexar(5) 47%
El Paso(8) 36%
Hudspeth(2) 67%
Medina(23) 63%
Val Verde(17) 46%
212 of 267 have reported with Bonilla at 45%
The democrats said that they would have a better chance of winning if it went to runoff and less voters voted in the runoff. I guess they were right. I wonder if he would have won if there had not been a run off.
I wonder if Bonilla even knew that he could lose. His advisors probably kept telling him it was a sure thing because TX is a "Republican state."
AP has called it for Rodriguez.
We just lost one of the good Congressman to another Dem -- unbelieveable! He couldn't even take time to go down and campaign for Bonilla? If I was a Republican, I wouldn't count on this President for anything right now. He seems quite happy to have the Dims in control if you ask me and I was a long time supporter.
I am sure he would have come if asked. The president's approval ratings aren't that great right now. It might have hurt more than helped if he came down. I believe the President would have been down there lickity split if Bonilla called him and requested it.
So people feel the republican party moved too far to the left and they voted for fascists?
Bonilla still had over a million dollars left after his general election campaign, and said he didn't need more money.
I suppose if he had spent a million of it in the general election, he might have won, but it's hard to beat SIX other people, you can't just attack them because there are too many of them.
The Bonilla campaign was extremely worried about voter turnout. Guess they were right about that.
9:19pm:
Henry Bonilla Inc REP 29,869 45.38%
Ciro D. Rodriguez DEM 35,951 54.62%
My State Rep got blown away in a special election because the Democrats can identify their voters better and get them out to vote. Bonilla very well might have won if he just faced Rodriguez in November, but it would have been close.
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