In my assessment, FIVE counties are *doubly* high-stakes criminal justice hotspots next week: they have both a DA race *and* a sheriff race that features real stakes for mass incarceration & criminal justice reform.
These counties are in: GA, OH, AZ, SC, and MI.
Brief thread.
1/ Maricopa County, AZ, undoubtedly tops the list here. Because it's huge. & because it matters.
seriously! the Onion's joke here is about a man caring about an Illinois Supreme Court election... & one of my favorite pieces to work on this year was this essential @KyleCBarry agenda-setter on... the Illinois Supreme Court!
the Onion also names check @injusticewatch's amazing guide to Cook County judicial elections, which yes if you live in the county you should actually be aware of & share!
Also this fascinating @henryredrobin article on the debates on the unfairness of the criminal legal system via the DA election of a small Wisconsin county, a very rare county with a contested DA race in the entire state. wisconsinexaminer.com/2020/08/13/sha…
Turnout rate in 2016, as of 14 days from ED:
—12% of registered Dems, 10% of registered Republicans, 7% of others
Turnout rate in 2020, as of 15 days from ED:
—31% of registered Dems, 19% of registered Republicans, 18% of others
Colorado has in-person options that Republicans who want to avoid mail-in voting will use. But it’s also a universal mail-in state so you’d expect many more to vote that way than elsewhere—and indeed you see a same rush to vote among them too. But Dems’ urgency off chart.
To sum up... I don’t know what to make of all of this, other than to say that the patterns bear little resemblance to past cycles, so we’re all just waiting.
I combined into one spreadsheet various pieces of info on the Texas Secretary of State website: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
Includes number of votes cast so far in each county — as a share of the 2016 vote, & a share of all RVs.
Also 2016/2018 results in each, & electorate growth.
What it shows so far: Some populous Dems counties are voting a bit above statewide average as a share of past elections (Travis, Harris, Hidalgo, El Paso), as are some swing counties that voted for Beto in 2018 (Nueces, Williamson). But so are MANY ruby red conservative counties.
Which is to say, big turnout in Houston or Austin doesn't tell a story of asymmetry here.
But there's an overall story of energy that's noteworthy even if doesn't say much about result.