Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Dallas Progress’ take on 2008 primary

By Michael Davis of Dallas Progress

This was an interesting election from many angles. To me, the major races on the Dallas County Democratic Ballot were for President and for Sheriff.

Here are the results on those two races:

For President, I am only including the stats on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Since this was a partisan race, we'll break the results down from a county perspective. These are the numbers from each commissioner's district. The easiest way to know the district you live in is to find the first number of your voting precinct.

I will look at the entire county, with the customary southern focus. Commissioner District 3 is consider to be the district that most covers southern Dallas.

A couple of interesting facts here:

Barack Obama dominated in Dallas County. This was due mainly to district 3. While the officeholder of District 3 (Price) was a staunch Clinton supporter, the district voted otherwise and gave Obama a 52,400 vote advantage. Obama also won the remaining districts, but by a combined 16,400 votes.

In Districts 1, 2, and 4 only 3/4 of the people who voted for President went down ballot to vote for the Sheriff. In the District 3, that number was slightly higher at 80%.

Lupe Valdez missed being in a runoff by a grand total of 2,284 votes. When you look at the fact that more than 228,000 people voted in Dallas County, that's a thin margin. Why did she win? Mainly because she won handily in Districts 1,2, and 4. In District 3, the most votes were tallied but Roy Williams, Jr. lost by 8,800 votes. Valdez had the money, and a lot of the Democratic establishment in her corner. Roy Williams funds and support was limited, but he still did very well as a grassroots candidate. Ms. Valdez goes on to face the winner of the Jim Bowles/Lowell Cannaday Republican runoff.

The take: The new vote may be drowning out the voice of the establishment in District 3. It will be interesting to see what happens in the years to come. I am encouraged by the number of new voters that have come to the voting process.

Pegasus News content partner - Dallas Progress

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• Politics and Government > National > Federal Elections > President
• Politics and Government > Texas > Local Elections