{"id":31643,"date":"2018-08-08T21:56:04","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T21:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=31643"},"modified":"2018-08-08T21:56:04","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T21:56:04","slug":"straight-ticket-voting-and-the-trump-coattail-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=31643","title":{"rendered":"Straight-ticket voting and the Trump coattail effect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/txballot-trump-01.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-31644\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/txballot-trump-01-300x201.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/txballot-trump-01-300x201.png 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/txballot-trump-01-768x515.png 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/txballot-trump-01-1024x686.png 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/txballot-trump-01.png 1250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Buried near the end of a typically excellent Texas Tribune analysis by Ross Ramsey, is an item that sent chills up my spine.<\/p>\n<p>It reads: <em>Straight-ticket voting accounted for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2017\/06\/01\/texas-gov-greg-abbott-signs-bill-eliminate-straight-ticket-voting\/\" target=\"_self\">64 percent of all voting<\/a> in the state\u2019s ten largest counties in the 2016 general election. If that holds in 2018, almost two-thirds of the vote will be cast with more attention to party than person.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Ramsey&#8217;s analysis talks about the candidate whose name isn&#8217;t on the ballot: Donald J. Trump. If Trump&#8217;s approval numbers are up, Republicans will do well; if they&#8217;re down, Democrats might have a glimmer of hope.<\/p>\n<p>Read the analysis <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/08\/08\/analysis-trump-texas-2018-most-important-candidate\/\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Why do I have the heebie-jeebies? Because I hate straight-ticket voting, no matter which party is up. The GOP is currently the &#8220;up party&#8221; in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>What galls me to the max is that a healthy majority of voters in the state&#8217;s largest counties vote for the party rather than the individual.<\/p>\n<p>Sad, man!<\/p>\n<p>I live in one of the state&#8217;s larger counties these days. Collin County will figure mightily in the midterm election that is coming up quickly.<\/p>\n<p>If only I could persuade state legislators to change the law, propose a constitutional amendment, do something proactive to force voters to examine every race individually before casting their ballots.<\/p>\n<p>Spare me the idiocy that voters don&#8217;t have &#8220;the time&#8221; to look at these races when they step into the ballot box.<\/p>\n<p>Parties shouldn&#8217;t matter more than the individual we elect to serve us, the people.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Buried near the end of a typically excellent Texas Tribune analysis by Ross Ramsey, is an item that sent chills up my spine. It reads: Straight-ticket voting accounted for 64 percent of all voting in the state\u2019s ten largest counties in the 2016 general election. If that holds in 2018, almost two-thirds of the vote &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=31643\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Straight-ticket voting and the Trump coattail effect<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1424,1941,4432,4728],"class_list":["post-31643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-gop","tag-straight-ticket-voting","tag-texas-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31645,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31643\/revisions\/31645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}