Who knows the demographics of the counties. R or D?
One commenter said: I've been voting for 37 years (I'm 58) and this is the first time I've been excited to go vote. This is also the first time my candidate has made it through the primaries. Thanks to the ease of fund raising through the internet, the people's choice, not the party establishment's choice is on the ballot. I voted for Obama.
Been voting for loosers your whole life then? No reason to change now, I guess.
Corpus Christi and surrounding counties historically are *swing* areas in Texas politics, with a slight Democratic lean (San Patricio is closer to even, along with Aransas. Jim Wells is slightly more Democratic).
Nueces County used to be a very heavily Democrat county. In recent years, it has become a swing county that is almost 50%-50%. In 2006 Nueces County elected a Republican County Judge and Sherriff for the first time since the end of Reconstruction on a night when Republicans were getting slaughtered nationwide and in particular lost control of the Dallas County and Harris County courthouses.
The control of the Texas House may come down to three races in districts containing parts of Nueces County where Republicans have a shot at knocking off some very junior Democrat legislators two of whom are freshmen. The other has served just two terms. All three incumbents received lots of money from Mauricio Celis in 2006. Last year Celis who was born in Monclova, Mexico was arrested wearing a bathrobe at a convenience store where he chased a naked woman near his house in Corpus Christi. He claimed to be an assistant dupty from Duval County. The new Republican Sherriff checked up on Celis' law enforcement credentials and found out that they had expired three years previously. Furthermore it was discovered that Celis apparently had no record of graduating from law school or having a law license either in Texas or Mexico even though he claimed to be a lawyer. Not long after this information was reported by San Antonio newspapers, Mikal Watts, a very wealthy local trial lawyer dropped out of the race for the Democrat nomination for the Senate seat currently held by John Cornyn after spending $8 million of his own money on the race. Watt's law firm had received numerous referrals of cases from Celis, and Watts and his trial lawyer buddies had donated thousands of dollars to Celis' PAC. Later on the feds indicted Celis on money laundering charges. Apparently he was flying large quantities of money between the US and Mexico on his private plane.
Below are some links about Celis
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/016636.phphttp://www.freerepublic.com/tag/celis/index
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2007470/posts
http://www.kiiitv.com/news/local/18191979.html
http://halfempth.blogspot.com/2007/10/mikal-watts-accepts-4600-from-great.html
South Texas is mostly Dem. Repubs are a scarce minority. The nice thing is that overall Texas is red. May not be red for too long if we keep getting these west coast liberals moving over here.