Responses to David Jennings' Blog: Precinct Chair Filing Update 3

This morning, one week prior to the end of filing for office for candidates for various offices, including the office of precinct chairman, local columnist David Jennings posted this blog with some observations about the state of filings in Harris County. Throughout today I have posted two responses that I consider to be very important. I hope you'll take the time to look at the original post and then look at my two responses below.

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Dave:

I just went to the HCRP website and did a quick name count. Of the 874 precincts that currently exist, the party had filled about 470 precinct chair seats by October, 2009. Of the 885 precincts that will exist after January 1, 2010, there were only about 350 precincts with applicants as of December 23rd (and 15 of those precincts had more than one applicant). With 4 1/2 days left for filing, I am concerned that we won't even match the current number of precinct chairs coming out of the primary.

We need to send an SOS to everyone in the party, and to everyone who cares about the party and electing Republicans, to sign-up, or get their neighbors or club members to sign-up. Looking at the statistics from the 2008 General Election, on average there was a 7% greater turnout between the precincts where Republicans had a chair and where it did not have a chair. However, the stratification was even more pronounced: where we had a chair, we were 3 times more likely to have turnout of over 70%; where we did not have a chair, we were 4 times more likely to have turnout below 60%. Moreover, there were 156 precincts where Republicans do well, or are at least competitive, where we had no chair. If we had gained a 7% better turnout in those precincts on average, most of the down-ballot races that Republicans lost in 2008 would have been won.

We must fill these positions!

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UPDATE:

Ok...here's an update and an analysis as of the last posting by the HCRP for filings through today (as of 4:25 p.m.). Candidates have filed for 360 precints. Of the 8 who filed between the morning posting and the afternoon posting, 6 are incumbents, 1 challenger has filed where the incumbent has not yet filed, and 1 person has filed for a vacant seat.

For the 360 seats, here is how the filings breakdown so far: 273 are seats where the incumbents have filed and there is no challenger; 35 are occupied seats where a new person has filed, but the incumbent has not filed; 43 are currently vacant seats are where a new person has filed; and 15 seats are contested so far. Of those contested seats--3 of the races are between two newcomers for a vacant seat; 3 are between two newcomers for occupied seats where the incumbent has not yet filed; and 9 are contested between the incumbent and a challenger.

Here's the good news--55 newcomers have filed to run for precinct chair, with 49 of them seeking vacant seats, which would mean a gain of 49 precincts for the party if we keep the currently occupied chairs filled. And...we have 3 1/2 more days in which to try and fill more vacant seats.

Here's the bad news--only 282 out of about 470 incumbents have filed. If the current pace of filings continue, we will not match the current number of filled seats, even with the gains we are making in filling vacant seats.

We can't win elections without boots on the ground, and we currently only cover half the county. The goal was not to go backwards. We must fill these positions!