Susan Henney did not seem discouraged during the long wait while covering for dozens of other people on Wednesday afternoon, the time for early voting in Harris County.
Henney may have returned next week, when waiting times are likely to decrease at the county’s 112 early voting sites, adding the location he chose, Prairie View A University’s Northwest Houston campus
“I would literally walk over a window and through a COVID wall to vote,” henney, 51, said with her voice drowned out by a face mask with a representation of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the overdue Supreme Court magistrate.
More than a million of the Harris County electorate voted in the November 3 election in the first 4 days of early voting, a bloody explosion of repressed political power that led the county to demolish its own record of participation set just four years ago.
In interviews with more than three hundred voters in Houston rule this week, it became clear that the points that caused an acute rupture between the two main political parties: Donald Trump’s incendiary rhetoric, the Democratic Party’s left turn, and Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination – also generated impressive involvement in Harris County. Voters of both parties expressed the election in deastrous terms, predicting catastrophic situations if their appearance lost.
“Without Trump, we probably wouldn’t have a country. We’re going to have socialism. I hope Trump wins and saves our country,” said Bess Smith, 73, who voted Thursday to build the East County Fair Association in New Caney. .
Smith expressed fear about Black Lives Matter, this year’s great civil rights initiative, and Antifa, the vaguely affiliated motion of far-left activists Trump blamed for the violent protests that followed the Minnesota police killing of former Houston resident George Floyd.
Many electorates in Harris and Fort Bend counties, where Democrats made rapid electoral advances in the last election, said they were fed up with the trump administration’s chaos, from tweets to the country’s deteriorating relations with lifelong allies. Cynthia Brown, 62, said she hoped the Democratic nominee and her vice presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, would be more transparent than Trump.
“There probably wouldn’t be so much deception and manipulation,” Brown said. “And racial division, I completely oppose that. I get the impression Trump’s feeding that. When President Obama was in office, we didn’t have all those problems. So I’m looking for our country to get back to normal, because we’ve had too many disorders in the last 4 years. “
In rare cases, the electorate remained divided while they were covered to vote. Terry Loftin, 73, said he would make a game resolution between Biden and Trump. He describes himself as a long-time Republican who is “seriously disappointed” with Trump.
“He still has that explosive developer mentality,” Loftin told lee G. Alworth Building, one of the first polling stations in Conroe. To tell you the truth, I have a feeling it’s a disgrace to the American presidency. And that’s not a simple thing for me to say. “
Still, Loftin said, he doesn’t like Biden either, and in all likelihood, he said, he may just vote for Trump.
During the interviews, many voters who supported Trump in 2016 expressed disgust at the president’s style, temperament or even functionality in office, however, the vast majority said they planned to do so with him, as a component because they saw Biden as a much worse person. Option.
One of the voters, Frances Smith, 79, said she was motivated by abortion and her preference to see conservative judges in the Supreme Court.
“I don’t vote for Trump for the guy, I vote for the principles he stands for. He could hate man as a person,” Smith said, adding that he opposes Biden for abortion and homosexual rights.
Other problems arising from interviews with more than a hundred Biden and Trump supporters, as well as dozens of people who refused to reveal their favorite candidate, include:
Democrats were largely motivated by their intense opposition to Trump, and many said their vote was based more on anti-Trump sentiment than pro-Biden sentiment. Shanna Kirl, a 42-year-old Biden supporter in Galveston, said: “It’s an anti-Trump vote, that’s for sure, any Democrat would work.
Of the 48 voters who cited COVID-19 as the main problem, two said they voted for Trump and the rest supported Biden, refusing to disclose his selection or, in one case, undecided.
Of the 23 voters who said they voted in their first presidential election, 10 said they supported Biden, supported Trump, and four refused to reveal their election.
Few constituencies have expressed familiarity with the decline in electoral contests in the United States Senate and House elections, despite the fierce war raging in the Texas House of Representatives this cycle.
The prevalence of the electorate that excites Biden and Trump is not surprising, as the American electorate is increasingly motivated through his aversion to the other party rather than his own party, said Elizabeth Simas, a professor of political science at the University of Houston who studies the electorate. . Behavior.
“In fact, it’s a tactic with either side, just because we essentially have two options,” Simas said. “Partisanship is incredibly stable. It takes a lot to stay away from your party. And I guess, and what literature suggests, is that other people who replace the course just stay home.
Democrats presented the big turnout as a sign that Harris County is on the verge of a darker shade of blue this year, after Democrat Hillary Clinton took the county through 12 percentage points over Trump in 2016 and Senate nominee Beto O’Rourke won the vote on 17 issues about Republican Sen. Ted Cruz two years later.
It’s too early to say how the vote will break this year, with a fifth of the county’s nearly 2. 5 million registered voters who surrendered through Friday.
However, clues have begun to emerge. As of Thursday, 58% of the vote cast in Harris County came from districts won through Clinton in 2016, about 23% of the vote Clinton won with at least 75% of the vote, while 8% came from districts where she won 25% or less.
Although Texas do not register to vote through party membership, political science professors at the University of Houston Jeronimo Cortina and Brandon Rottinghaus have measured strong participation in the first 3 days of early voting among those who voted at number one Democrat in March in Harris County. By Thursday, participation had increased in classical Republican strongies in the north of the county.
Cortina said he had not yet noticed anything to recommend that Harris County would oppose the course of the last two elections, he also warned Democrats too positive.
“On average, Democrats like to vote early and Republicans tend to vote on Election Day in general circumstances,” Cortina said. “However, with the pandemic, who knows?”
Linda Dunegan, 72, one of the first voters to say she supported Biden after voting for Trump in 2016, said she voted for Trump because she “felt we needed new blood,” but began to repent once her administration implemented the policy. Trump signed an order to end the policy after generating an intense reaction.
“He has taken the youth away from their parents, he has betrayed our unwavering top allies, he has reached out to Russia, he admires Putin, who takes care of his enemies and warring parties by poisoning them and mysteriously making them disappear,” Dunegan said, and She added that she “desperately” votes for Trump, “and I have regretted it ever since. “
Some said his resolution was a bachelor affair. Josiah Powell, 29, said she believed in “the holiness of a lifetime. “If a candidate “can’t do this properly,” Powell said, “that excludes them for me. “Crystaline Wright, 47, Trump’s supporter, said of the president: “I like the way he dealt with China.
For some Biden supporters, the calculation is even simpler: before voting at Rice Stadium, 25-year-old Paul Lewis-Jackson said he voted against Trump because “I need to wake up and feel less angry. “
Ashley Carr, 34, took her young son, Abrian, while voting early at St. John’s Church on Thursday. Carr, who is black, noted that the minority electorate votes at lower rates than the white electorate.
“I just need other people who look like me to be heard,” he says. “I hope this year is different. “
jasper. scherer@chron. com