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| How did he do it? |
A VERY SPECIAL SPECIAL ELECTION
(WITH A LOW TURNOUT)
In a post-mortem of Ellzey's surprise win over Susan Wright, the Trump-endorsed candidate to succeed the late Congressman Ron Wright, the Tribune's Patrick Svitek provides anecdotal evidence supporting the proposition that Democrats contributed to the loss of Trump's favored candidate.
Also see prior post here, which made inferences based on the election data: What to make of the Special Election Result in 6th Congressional District (Ron Wright Succession)
Whether Democrats played a key role in the deciding the contest between the two Republican candidates remains an open question, but it is essentially an empirical one. Even in the absence of exit poll data, it would be possible to estimate the amount of voting by Democrats, based on their prior voting history in Democratic primaries.
Short of that type of analysis at the micro-level, a statistical analysis of precinct results could also shed some light on the genesis of Ellzey's victory, such as comparing the two candidates' performance in the first and second rounds in light of historical election results, including Ron Wright's performance in 2018. Wright defeated Jake Ellzey in the Republican primary runoff on May 22, 2018.
One hypothesis would be that Ellzey was favored by his own current constituents in state house district 10 (mostly Ellis County), which is a component of congressional district 6.
CAUSE VS. BLAME
Trump reportedly "blamed" Democrats for the special-election upset. Think about that for a moment. What's the underlying assumption there? That Democrats should not be voting at all, lest they get to participate in deciding who will represent them? This was a special election, not a Republican primary. So Democratic voters had as much a right to register their preference among the two candidates that made it into the run-off as Republican voters.
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| Unofficial election results as reported by Texas SOS (100% of precincts) |
PARTICIPATION RATE IN PERSPECTIVE
If we put the turnout in the decisive run-off race in perspective, we see that it was about half of the number of votes cast in the first round, which featured 23 candidates, and only a fraction of the number that got Ron Wright elected in the 2018 general election.
Runoff total votes: 39,116. Ellzey won with 20,837 (53.27%)
First round total votes: 78,374. Susan Wright scored first with 78,374 (19.2%), Ellzey second with 10,851 (13.8%).
2018 U.S. HOUSE TEXAS DISTRICT 6 ELECTION RESULTS
Total votes in Nov. 6, 2018 general election: 256,042. Ronald Wright won over Democrat Jana Sanchez with 53.1% in a race that also featured a Libertarian, who received 1.5%. The total tally for Wright was 135.961. Ellzey had been eliminated in the GOP runoff.
Total votes in runoff between Ronald Wright and Jake Ellzey in 2018: 24,433. Ellzey lost with 11,686 (47.8%).
Total votes in first round of Republican primary in 2018: 45,960. Ellzey scored second with one vote shy of 10K (21.8%). Ronald Wright led a field of ten candidates with 20,750 (45.1%).
DATA SOURCES: Jake Ellzey Ballotpedia Page, Texas Secretary of State
REFERENCE
How Republican Jake Ellzey's bipartisan appeal, positive campaign helped him upset Trump's pick for Congress. Wright’s coveted endorsement from Trump — which appeared so powerful in propelling her to the top in the initial election — may have contributed to her undoing in the runoff where state Rep. Jake Ellzey benefited from a more bipartisan appeal, coupled with a more positive, energetic campaign. TEXAS TRIBUNE 2021-07-29 by PATRICK SVITEK
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