bolverk

I'm not a stats wizard like yourself, so I just cheated and used the FORECAST formula option in Excel (using 2012, 2016, and 2020) to guestimate what 2024 should look like. I honestly have no idea if that was a defensible option, but that's what I went with. Most of the rural red counties showed a huge drop in support for the Dem candidate from 2012 to 2016. Some continued that decline in 2020, and so the trend continued to show them getting redder in 2024. Some dropped in 2016, but support inched up in 2020 toward Biden and the 2024 output kind of split the difference between 2016 and 2020. The ones that were steadily getting bluer continued to do so.

Go to this link: https://earlyvoting.texas-election.com/Elections/getElectionEVDates.do There will be three drop boxes: Choose the Unofficial Early Voting option on the left, select the date you voted, and hit submit. Choose the county you voted in, and download the CSV file. It lists everyone who voted on that date in that county. Your name should be on that list.

Serious question: Is law school at a place like Michigan so easy that a true dumbass can graduate manga cum laude from there?

I'm not making a big deal of it yet because it's a calculation based on the assumption that counties that have been trending toward Dems continue to get slightly bluer and vice versa for the GQP. So, we'll just have to see how that pans out. It makes sense mathematically, but people's voting decisions aren't always that neat and tidy. For example, the math has Harris going up to: Collin 53.1% Tarrant 52.1% Denton 50.3% And on the downside, falling to: Webb (Laredo) 54.9% Hidaldgo (McAllen) 53.2% Cameron (Brownsville/Harlingen) 52.8% It's obviously not going to be precisely that, but it's picking up the larger voting trends from the past three elections and weighting for population growth since the last election. I'm just doing this to stay occupied and sane by putting nervous energy toward something that my brain thinks is productive.

By the way, the spreadsheet I'm using for the maps includes how each county voted in the last three presidential elections. I've calculated a guestimate (based on a calculated trends forecast) for Harris's share of the vote in each county in this cycle. Collin and Denton flip to blue with this scenario, but several smaller South Texas counties flip to red. If that's accurate, she's running about one percentage point ahead of Biden's final statewide tally (47.5% of the vote versus Biden's 46.5%), at least in the early voting. The model has her at a 335,000 vote deficit right now. It'll be interesting to see the effect of the Covid migration wave on the North Texas suburban counties and whether Collin/Denton indeed make the flip.

That isolation and lack of civilization is part of the appeal of West Texas for many folks.

Yep. Yep. I know we're talking about El Paso, but take a good look at the map: it's mostly a Hispanic/Latino problem. Those counties between Lubbock and Amarillo are mostly Hispanic. South Texas below the Nueces River. West of the Pecos. All have Hispanic majority populations. That's the common denominator. I realize engagement is a two-way street, but why the fuck has the Texas Democratic Party allowed it to get to this point? Texas would've flipped by now otherwise.

Yeah, how do you convince a group of people that civic participation matters when they don't see any benefits? Of course, there are benefits, but a lot of them just don't see how any of it matters. And, yes, that's on the Texas Democratic Party.

The short version of the story is I'd gotten a new boss in Austin and was miserable. My mom got terminal cancer, so it was an easy decision to quit and help her go through hospice. Once she passed, I spent some time prepping her house to sell (my dad had already died of Covid), but I got comfortable out here (it's the house I grew up in) and decided to just sell my Austin house, live here basically bill-free (no mortgage, solar panels, well water) and make a go of it.

I moved to my hometown in West Texas, which is about the same size as the Mt. Pleasant area. We only have one countywide EV location, so I don't think it's that. I do know there's a really big Pilgrim's Pride chicken plant in Mt. Pleasant, so they have an unusually large Hispanic population for Northeast Texas. I figure they're just really poorly integrated, isolated, and not engaged with the wider community, which likely accounts for the low turnout.

Good update overnight for the Austin area, with Travis and Wilco now running ahead of the statewide pace. Same goes for Montgomery County (boo!). Collin/Denton continue to impress, running well ahead. Bexar and McLennan finally caught up to the state. Harris County has now fallen behind for the first time since I've been updating the map. The same geographic areas continue to lag: South Texas, Far West, and Panhandle/Plains between Amarillo and Lubbock. I remain fascinated by the abysmal turnout in Titus County (Mt. Pleasant). Mid-sized cities away from the border that rate poorly: Corpus Christi Amarillo proper (not the suburbs to its south) Temple/Killeen/Copperas Cove Wichita Falls Abilene Odessa (Midland's doing okay) Victoria El Paso, Valley: Get your shit together.

This should've been much easier. Wordle 1,229 4/6 🟨🟨🟨⬛🟨 🟨🟨🟨🟨⬛ 🟨⬛🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #507 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🙂 Daily Quordle 1010 5️⃣6️⃣ 7️⃣4️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨 ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

Early morning turnout through CoB yesterday, per the SoS website. Dallas, Bexar, El Paso, and the RGV are dragging ass. There must be a reporting error for Victoria because the website shows their participation rate somehow declining from Sunday to Monday.

Wordle 1,228 4/6 ⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛ ⬛⬛⬛🟨🟨 ⬛🟩🟨🟨⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #506 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🙂 Daily Quordle 1009 6️⃣4️⃣ 5️⃣7️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨 🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I dunno about that. It seems to me CNN has lower standards. CNN gave that stupid motherfucker airtime. I don't know shit about fuck when it comes to that dude, but one would think some staffer would say something along the lines of "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why are we letting this idiot on our air?" At least here on Surly, a cunt making cunt sounds like that would get cut down pretty quickly before going big time. I honestly believe we have higher standards to meet at this pivotal moment than the former "Most Trusted Name in News." Our vetting process is much more thorough.

Apologies for quoting myself. Since slapping this map together, I've had time to do some cipherin'. Looking at the turnout and trends within individual counties over the last few elections, I've got Kamala at 47.5% of the popular vote in Texas. That's about one percentage point above where Biden stood in the final totals from 2020. Right now, the model estimates she's about 273,000 votes short. BUT, if I set only Dallas, Bexar, El Paso, and Hidalgo counties to vote at the same pace as the statewide turnout rate while changing nothing else, she immediately gains a 309,000 vote advantage. That puts her winning the state. This is actually closer than I expected after initially putting together the initial map. Edit: By the way, my current model has her winning the following counties outright (sorted in descending order by her estimated share of the vote): TRAVIS DALLAS EL PASO PRESIDIO BEXAR HARRIS FORT BEND HAYS ZAVALA DIMMIT WEBB WILLIAMSON HIDALGO COLLIN CAMERON TARRANT JIM HOGG BROOKS DENTON I'll see about adding more columns of data tomorrow to provide more assumptions to make it more accurate (and filling in new EV totals), but this is heartening information.

The first thing that came to mind for me, too.

Don't wait.

39, actually, but point taken. It's pretty fucked up, though, because the Census counted 64 residents in 2020, and they estimate only 43 lived there last year. BUT there are 128 registered voters in the county. I believe Texas Monthly had an exposé about this weirdness a few years back. Go figure that people are still getting away with it.

Below is a map of early voting in Texas so far, as reported by the SoS website. I'd originally planned to compare this with 2016 since 2020 was such an anomaly and assumed we're going back to our old ways, but the SoS only shows that data for the largest counties. The yellows are counties with EV turnouts within the range (26.83% to 31.83%) of the statewide average (29.33%). From there, each color is a five-percentage-point range going up and down from the average. Greens and blues are running ahead of the statewide rate, while oranges, reds, and purples are lagging the state. HUGE OUTLIERS: Fuckin' Hemphill (dark blue) 137% (!!!) of their registered voters have already placed their ballots. In Real, only 1.67% are reported to have voted early as of today. WHO'S RUNNING AHEAD? Rural counties with tons of Anglo retirees are running far ahead of the statewide pace. These are concentrated mostly in the Hill Country west of the I-35 Corridor: Llano, Blanco, Burnet, Lampasas, Mills, etc. Suburban and exurban counties to the north and northwest of San Antonio: Comal, Kendall, Kerr, Gillespie, etc. Suburban and exurban counties to the north and northwest of Fort Worth: Denton, Wise, etc. "Old Three Hundred" counties in between Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. Golden Triangle and NE Texas. Booming suburban counties that have been trending Democratic are representing well: Williamson, Hays, Denton, Collin, Fort Bend. WHO'S LAGGING BEHIND? Among the big urban: Dallas, Bexar, and El Paso. RGV/South Texas (Laredo, Corpus, McAllen/Edinburg, Brownsville/Harlingen). Mid-sized areas that make you go, huh?: Waco/Temple/Killeen, Midland/Odessa, Abilene/Sweetwater, Victoria/Port Lavaca. Poor, rural, and isolated Texas counties dominated by Hispanics, mostly out west and the South Plains/Panhandle. What the hell is going on in Mount Pleasant? Are those workers in the Pilgrim's plant just going to sit it out? TRENDS? Among the rurals, older Anglos are coming out hard, and poor rural Hispanics are staying home. South Texas, in general, continues to disappoint. Dallas and San Antonio need to get their shit together. Dallas County would seem to be especially troubling for Allred. Right now, I'd say these numbers don't point toward any happy surprises for Texas Dems, and we'll still be stuck with Lyin' Ted for the next 6 years.

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Yes, it is. I'll go out on a limb and say it might be the most powerful political ad I've seen in my time.

I'm adopted, too, but for the sake of believing specific genetic bloodlines remain "pure," and to hilarious effect, my birthfather's dad came to Texas from New Orleans. I wonder if he fucked your grandma.

To be fair, I don't think "the guy spouting facts about sheep" is defending the appropriateness of that statement within that particular political context. Instead, I think he was making a broader and more general statement about supporting the notion that comedic speech shouldn't be limited. Of course, that's my assumption, but maybe he does believe it's totally cool to blast out your hatred of accents, spices, and color to your beige world.

The character honestly reminds me a whole lot of MFC Danger Girl from way back when.