A record number of Texas voters voted straight ticket this year

December 11, 2008 – Austin, TX – A record 57 percent of Texas voters voted straight ticket during the recent November elections and once again, more Texas Republicans voted straight ticket than Democrats, but by the smallest margin ever this time.

These findings come from the just-released Straight Ticket Voting in Texas report produced by ACC’s Center for Public Policy and Political Studies (CPPPS). The report shows more Texans voted this year than ever before, a record number of voters voted straight ticket, and the Republicans received the lowest percentage of straight ticket votes in the center’s 10 years of analysis.

“We were surprised by the number of people who voted straight ticket this year,” said Larry Willoughby, the ACC Associate Professor of History who assisted in preparation of the report. “We expected the number to be less than the previous election (2006) because large numbers of new voters usually vote for one or more individuals, not specifically for a party.”

The report also showed that the Republican margin of victory in Texas came from the swing (non-straight ticket) vote. In the Presidential election, the Republican swing voters outvoted Democrats 63.1 to 36.9 percent. In the U.S. Senate race, Republicans won swing voters by a 63.9 to 36.1 percent margin.

“Apparently, at least for this election cycle, straight ticket voting was a record majority of the votes cast, but it was so evenly divided, it was not decisive by itself.  The Republican victory in 2008 came not from control of straight ticket voting, but by the GOP’s overwhelming victory among swing voters,” said Peck Young, director of CPPPS.

The report is based on an analysis of 47 counties, which represents 83 percent of all the votes cast for president in Texas in 2008. This is the sixth election in which CPPPS has analyzed straight ticket voting from 1998 to 2008. The information gathered from these studies enables the center to observe voting patterns and possible political trends among straight ticket voters.

For more information or questions about the report, please contact W. R. “Peck” Young at (512) 223.7069 or at [email protected].  For general information about the center, please go to www.austincc.edu/cppps.

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