Election years are supposed to be the time for democracy to shine. We’ll debate, we’ll campaign and then in November we’ll come together to decide which direction we’ll swim for the next two to four years.
But in Texas, who’ll run the state is usually decided in the spring. And it’s a much smaller share of people who participate in those elections.
That’s especially true in legislative and congressional races, thanks to gerrymandering and noncompetitive elections. Let’s take a look at the 2022 race in state House District 142 in Houston as an example of why.
Two years ago, some local Democrats were angry at HD 142’s incumbent, Harold Dutton. As the Public Education Committee chair, Dutton had allowed a bill to advance that placed new restrictions on transgender student athletes in Texas. And he’d supported a state takeover of Houston ISD. With the backing of a coalition of progressive groups, Candis Houston mounted a challenge in the Democratic primary.
By winning the primary, Dutton moved on to a general election race against Republican Richard Varner.
Three times more people from HD 142 showed up to make their voices heard in the November general election. But Varner had dropped out before a single general election vote was cast. Even if he hadn’t, Dutton almost certainly would have won. District 142 is heavily Democratic — Joe Biden would have won it by 49.3 percentage points in 2020. For all intents and purposes, the race was decided in March.
That means that in a district where at least 36.4% of registered voters cast a ballot in 2022, less than 10% actually voted in the decisive election.
More people voted in November, but the decision was already made
A total of 35,082 people in this district voted in the general election, but the House race
was uncontested.
Registered voters
who didn’t vote
18 or older who
didn’t register
In the Democratic primary where 8,377 people voted, voters elected Dutton by a slim margin.
More people voted in November, but the decision was already made
A total of 35,082 people in this district voted in the general election, but the House race
was uncontested.
In the Democratic primary where 8,377 people voted, voters elected Dutton by a slim margin.
Registered voters
who didn’t vote
18 or older who
didn’t register
That decision had a major impact on the governance of this state. Dutton lost his chairmanship of the Public Education Committee the following year, but he was put in charge of the Juvenile Justice and Family Issues Committee. More than a dozen bills became law that passed through that committee in 2023; all essentially needed his blessing in order to advance.
The dynamics at play in that race were mirrored all over the state during the 2022 election cycle.
[Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.]
The Texas House has 150 members. Each is up for election every two years. In March 2022, there were 28 competitive House primaries, including Dutton’s — races in which the margin of victory was 10 percentage points or fewer.
By comparison, there were just 4 competitive House races in the general election.
Unless you lived in one of the rare House districts with a relatively even partisan balance, your only hope of impacting a House election would have been in the primary.
Colors represent the winner’s party.
Colors represent the winner’s party.
This trend has a major impact on Texas politics — and how we’re governed.
First, it means that a much smaller share of voters participate in the state’s most important elections.
During presidential years like this year, the gap between primary turnout and general election turnout is even wider. In 2020, only 25% percent of voters showed up for the primaries (and that was considered high, since there was a competitive presidential primary that year). During the general election, when control of the House was pretty much already determined, turnout was 67%.
There are two main reasons we have so many uncompetitive races: Geographic polarization and gerrymandering. Research shows that we sort ourselves by politics. If you live in a big urban city, you’re far more likely to vote Democratic. If you live in a rural area, you’re more likely to be a Republican. That means urban districts are highly likely to be blue; and rural districts are usually deep red.
But our lawmakers have exacerbated this problem. Texas has been changing demographically. It’s getting more racially diverse, and more people are living in urban and suburban areas. Late last decade, those shifts caused some state House districts to become more competitive.
Then in 2021, lawmakers redrew the district lines. They packed more conservative voters into competitive GOP-held districts to protect Republican incumbents. And they added some of the nearby neighborhoods that are swinging to the left into districts already held by Democrats. The result was much less competition. In 2018, there were 27 state House races decided by 10 percentage points or fewer. In 2020, there were 26. In 2022, there were only 4.
Fewer general election Texas House races were competitive in 2022
Colors represent the winner’s party.
Fewer general election Texas House races were competitive in 2022
Colors represent the winner’s party.
These trends affect not only who serves in the Texas Capitol, but also the pressures they face and the constituents they need to focus on. The all-important primary electorate is not representative of the state as a whole. Texas is one of the youngest states in the country. But according to GOP election data expert Derek Ryan, more than 30% of the Republican primary voters in 2022 were over the age of 70. Less than 4% of those voters were under the age of 30.
And in the GOP primary, those voters “tend to be far more conservative than the average Texas voter — and notably more conservative than people who vote Republican in November,” said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University. Similarly in the Democratic primary, the voters tend to be more liberal.
Lawmakers are aware of this. If you represent one of the 146 districts that weren’t competitive in the 2022 general election, you know your seat is probably safe in November 2024. Recent history shows that it’s rare for a district to vote for one party at the top of the ballot, like the presidential race, and a different party in a legislative race. In 2022, that happened only twice — and one of those races was uncontested.
But any House member could face a serious and well-financed primary challenger. So for the sake of their political future, the voters most House members need to keep happy are the more activist and polarized primary voters.
That may help explain why policies that are popular with the broad public might be nonstarters for lawmakers worried about primary challengers. A poll last year showed that 76% of Texas voters supported raising the age to purchase a gun from 18 to 21. Such a proposal went basically nowhere in the Texas House.
“Virtually all the Republican House members and Democratic House members don’t have to worry about centrist voters,” Jones said. “They are not going to affect their political career.”
The same is true in the Senate, where only one out of 31 general election races was decided by less than 10 points in 2022, and the U.S. House, where only two out of 36 were close.
The lesson for voters? If you want to have a say in who represents you in Austin, you should vote in the primary. It might be your only chance.
ABOUT THE DATA
Election results data is from the Texas Secretary of State. District by district population, voting age population and turnout data is from Texas Legislative Council based on their analysis using U.S. Census 2020 data. When comparing general and primary numbers, it’s important to remember there are a maximum of 150 possible races in each of the Republican and Democrat primaries in the Texas House. In the general election, there’s a maximum possibility of 150 races total.
