Lowest Level Primary Election Campaign Debrief

Our Primary in Texas was on Super Tuesday, along with many other states. All in all, it was a good day.

The race I experienced most closely was my own—for precinct chair. It’s the lowest elected political office there is. I represent my neighborhood at the Harris County Republican Party meetings. There are somewhere around 600 of us in the County. My total constituency, including all voters of any party, is around 3300 (precinct size varies; mine is probably a bit over average size). Of those, about half are Independent voters—meaning they have not voted in a Primary, where party is declared, so we don’t know how they vote in a general election. Of the remaining, I think my precinct is about 54% Republican, which is solid but not stellar.

Republicans are more active here, though. Often the Dems have trouble hiring someone to run their Primary; two years ago the County notified us in the middle of the night that they had no one, and we’d have to run their Primary in addition to our own. This year they had a good person—from well beyond the precinct. And as far as I know things went smoothly. My husband and I were not allowed to run the polling location, because I was on the ballot.

I won! After Early Voting and Ballot by Mail (BBM) were counted, I was leading with 70% of the vote. That decreased to 67% in the official count. I actually did better on Election Day than Early Voting, but my BBM percentage was 86%, so, while that number was few, it had helped my percentage to look high. Still, 67% is a huge win. The ballot doesn’t indicate the incumbent, and I was listed as the second choice, so random votes (no name recognition but voting anyway) would have gone against me. I’ll need more data to know for sure, but I also think we had a relatively good turnout in our precinct for a Primary.

Election results provided on HarrisVotes.com/Election-Results. 

This was very nearly my first experience with intense block walking and electioneering at polling places. Add to that texting every known Republican voter who had not already voted. I also had a website, and business cards, and flyers.

I got a lot of help from friends. In the area that comprises our school district, there were eleven races with challengers. Most of us had worked hard to flip the school board to conservative. Some of the challenges came because someone didn’t like that. Two on our team were challenging incumbent precinct chairs who had worked against us (supported a different conservative candidate who split the vote and caused one loss out of four school board seats in November). We teamed up to help each other block walk every Republican voter in every precinct. And we got help building the website, designing business cards, covering electioneering for Early Voting, and doing a few timed mass texts. I had done only small amounts of those things until now, although I had helped with various races in small ways. It was kind of a new experience to meet so many voters—outside of duties as an election clerk, where you don’t talk views at all.

All eleven of us who worked together won, by the way.

I’m going to share a few memories of this campaign experience, which is maybe a micro version of what any higher office campaign goes through.

Let’s get the few negative ones out of the way first, and then enjoy the good ones, for dessert.

Block Walking Adventures

While block walking, most people were either not home or very gracious, and many were friendly and welcoming. But there were some exceptions. We were aiming at houses with known Republican voters; we don’t need to talk with Democrat voters about a Republican Primary. So, there was a house where a man came to the door. The app on my phone told me two female Republican voters lived there, but sometimes people move, so we make a note of that. Anyway, I offered him my flyer, and he said, “I’d never vote for a Republican!” I laughed. I thought he was kidding, because I believed I was knocking on a Republican’s door. He wasn’t kidding. He said all Republicans are—the usual list of horrid things. And then, he’s looking at me and seeing I am none of those things, and he says, “But thank you for being involved and caring.” And I left. It could have been worse.

Some of the block walking crew; I'm so glad we could help each other.

There were two houses with a similar story. In one I was block walking with a friend in her precinct, near the end of our route. We pulled up in her car. I got out sooner and rang the doorbell. The woman answered and I began to offer the flyer. She said, “Tell me who won the 2020 Presidential Primary.” OK, weird question. But I said, “Well, I think Trump won,” and began to finish, “but here we are.” And she said. “Liar! I’m a Christian, and I won’t tolerate any more of these lies.” OK, I didn’t lie; I am the expert on what I believe, and I spoke the truth about what I believe, although I didn’t argue. Then she started to rant about how women need to get abortion rights back. Um. Christian? Calling me a liar when I didn’t? Expressing her hatred toward Trump and Trump voters? Insisting the urgent Christian priority is killing babies in the womb? (She wasn’t, by the way, anyone who would be facing that in her life going forward, since her childbearing years were in the rearview mirror.) By the time most of this happened, my friend had joined us, and quickly extracted us. This was not a voter worth a conversation.

The second similar story was in my precinct—block walking with the same friend. Vicki had gone to this house and left a flyer when no one answered the door. But we were walking back from further down the block when a woman came out of the house to the mailbox. So we approached her. She said she was a Democrat—and her husband wouldn’t be voting Republican anymore either, because women need to get back their abortion rights. OK. Noted. Again, this is a married woman beyond childbearing years, whose priority is getting those babies killed before they can be born. Apparently our constitutional liberties, our border, or economy, our First and Second Amendment rights, and just about anything else we care about is unimportant, but we need to get those babies killed. Hmm.

 

Electioneering Adventures

There were a few negative encounters while electioneering at polling sites, but a large percentage were positive. During Early Voting I spent time at three different polling locations. They are not set up for electioneering (approaching voters before they go in to vote). Unless the main parking areas are full, as when it’s really busy, then every voter is already beyond our reach. It was frustrating and fruitless.

But when voters were available, those tended to be good encounters. We were giving people information they weren’t getting from the various organizations that send out their ballot recommendations. Those didn’t include precinct chairs; that would be too granular for a mass mailer. So, unless someone had filled out their own sample ballot, they wouldn’t even be aware of precinct chairs. And a lot of people don’t know what such a position does. So we were giving them information they didn’t have, and most people seemed to appreciate that.

Electioneering at Radack Community Center, along with
House Rep. Lacey Hull's mom (right).

I had really good, long discussions with a couple of voters at one polling location—two different days. They were wide ranging but turned to religion. One man was into a particular preacher, who has a YouTube following, and I followed up and watched that. Interesting. I thought he had a few things right, and a few things I see differently, but I like to see what other people believe—especially about the times we’re living in. The next day, in the second of these conversations, a man gave me a book—that he had written about the Rapture and the Two Witnesses, talking about end times. I’ve been reading it; again, we don’t agree on all points. But I’m pleased to see he’s a good writer, and he lays out his points very clearly.

At my own polling place on Election Day, at the middle school, they assigned us to the gym, instead of the usual band room. The door into the gym is a bit further from the parking lot than the band room door, which meant the 100-foot line past which no electioneering can be done was more advantageous to me. I could encounter almost every voter who came.

It was a very hot day—our first day in the 90s. I set up a lawn chair and attached a very large umbrella to give myself some shade. I also brought along my mountain dulcimer and played music during slow periods (around 3:00 PM was slow). A few people asked about it. When school got out, some kids came and thanked me for my impromptu concert.

My electioneering oasis on Primary Election Day 2024

Later in the day, until the polls closed, I had company campaigning for the next precinct over (people can vote at any polling location, and ours attracts 3-4 nearby precincts). So that was good for conversations too, and for catching all the voters.

Electioneering with Heather Palomo (left), the new
precinct chair just west of my precinct.

There was something I noticed, anecdotally, but maybe it’s meaningful. We’re told in various news sources that 90% of blacks vote Democrat, but that may be going down. So I go up to any voter I can get to, because you never know. At the Early Voting locations, sometimes Democrat voters were rude, but very few at mine on Election Day. I would offer my information, about precinct chairs, the last race on the ballot for anyone in a precinct with a challenger. I let people know the people on the list I was providing were conservative Republicans. Nevertheless, people I thought might not be interested (if I were profiling) were polite and accepted the information, even thanked me. If they were voting Democrat, they could have said so, or said, “No thanks, not interested,” as some did. But a surprising number showed interest and appreciation. They could have been just being polite, but it seemed to me more than was needed for politeness. I had the impression that either there are more black Republican voters than we knew of, or there are more becoming Republican voters this year.

The most gratifying thing to me was encountering voters who are already on my email list, who thank me for providing good information. They so appreciate it. I love hearing that. Providing them with good information—so they will not only just vote, but have what they need to be informed voters—that is my mission in this position.