One week into early voting for the November 5 general election, polls are showing high turnout for voters in Lubbock County. With tight races expected for the state of Texas and a number of local issues on the ballot, many Lubbockites are invested in the results of this election.
Assistant professor of government for South Plains College, Drew Landry, came by the KTTZ studio to discuss early voter turnout, local propositions and county races, public education in Texas and the impact of these elections on next year’s school voucher fight, and how voters can approach the anxiety of election season.
The following transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Brad Burt: Early voter turnout from the elections office is showing slightly slower than Nov. 2020, but total numbers are still quite high for Lubbock County. What’s your reaction to the early voting turnout so far?
Drew Landry: “Obviously, we've added more voters to the roll this four years than we did in the last four years. So looking at raw numbers is not exactly what you want to do. You want to keep things in a percentage form, and in percentage, the in-person voting in 2020 was around 16%; with mail-ins, it was 18.8. And in this cycle, the in-person voting for the first three days has been 17.3%, and with mail-ins, 18.2%. The grand total of that for Lubbock County was 66.14% in 2020. The expectation from the Lubbock County Elections Office is close to 75%, that would be super impressive. That would be really impressive.”
BB: The previous presidential election in 2020, Texas and the rest of the country was dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Gov. Abbott added extra days to early voting. Do you think that will have an influence on the comparison to this year’s total percentage of voter turnout?
DL: “Statewide, I think it will. 2020 was an anomaly nationwide also because you had an expansion of mail-in ballots, and so you had some people who may not have voted before or in previous elections, or haven't voted a while, vote in that one; it was just a little bit easier for them to actually do that, whereas now we're back to the way it was in 2018 or in 2016, so it'd be interesting to see if we surpass percentages in terms of 2016, if we meet that 2020 number in terms of percentages. But I think it's really interesting that the Elections Office is saying we're going to have a higher turnout than what anybody could expect. I'd be really stunned if we get 75% turnout; that'd be really amazing.”
BB: Going down the ballot to state elections, Colin Allred and Ted Cruz, the race for Texas Senate is one of the most expensive races this year, and it is expected to be very close. Both of those candidates made a choice to come to Lubbock, which is something that we haven't necessarily seen in previous years. What are your thoughts on this race?
DL: “They came out here for two different reasons. I think Allred wanted to come out here for not just West Texas money, but also to chip away at the proverbial Red wall that is West Texas, from the Panhandle down to the Concho Valley. I think that was a bit of a strategy there to help his numbers. It's a statewide election, so every county is going to count here, and he needs a certain percentage to really get him over the edge. Whereas Cruz comes out here to rally up the base, to really rally people up.
Cruz came after their debate that happened in Dallas. Allred came before their debate that happened in Dallas. I think it's interesting as to what the timing of that was, for Cruz to come afterward was to say, ‘Hey, look, I said all that stuff in the debate about the border, about transgender issues. Border security is a top issue for them, talk all about that stuff. Why? To get them excited to come out to vote. Let the people know. Let your voters know that even though they may think, ‘Oh, you’ve got it in the bag, I don't even need to show up.’ Make them scared enough. ‘Hey, I'm being outspent. I’ve got all these outside groups coming after me. I’ve got to have your support; only you can get me back in there.’ And this race is shown to be incredibly close, polling data coming out saying it's closer than what everyone thinks it is. And so Allred and Cruz, especially Cruz, has to have all the people who would normally take this race for granted, have got to show up for him. Allred needs people who would just give up, just say, ‘Eh, what's the big deal? We haven’t elected a Democrat here statewide in 30 years. Why?’ [Allred] needs to inspire them to come out here and to vote.
Lubbock County alone, just in 2024, has added about 5,000 more voters than previously. That's a lot, and that's a very good thing that campaigns say, hey, you keep adding 5,000 voters every two years, you're increasing your voter roll, and that could increase voter turnout. That's good for your side. It's one thing to get new people, more people, on the voter roll, it's another thing to get them out to vote. Candidates and campaigns have got to really do that.”
BB: Something that I keep hearing a lot in this election is that Texas hasn't elected a statewide Democrat in 30 years. Do you think that’s something that is having an influence on the younger voters who are turning out?
DL: “You hear it every two years. It's something that talking heads love to often say, ‘Well, you know, Democrats start at a disadvantage because they haven't elected anyone statewide since yada yada yada,’ 30 years, and if they don't do it again, then in two years, it'll be in 32 years. And so the number keeps adding up. I think those who have no concept of it, have only known Republicans, they could either be inspired by that to want to bring about a change, or scratch your head and go, so what's the point? There are two ways of looking at that, and it all depends, research comes back on this to say it depends heavily on how good a candidate can get out his message and inspire those to come out to really vote.
Allred is way different than [Beto] O’Rourke. Right off the bat, they're different personalities. They have different campaign styles. They just have different ways of engaging with people. I think what Allred saw in the O’Rourke campaign was that Texas is not a retail politics, knock-on-your-door across-the-entire-state type of campaign style. I think he's had a different approach to want to spend his time in the metroplexes because that's where a lot of the registered voters have grown. Get them out. Spend all my money there. Spend money and ads west of I-35, get people who may not have voted or let them feel the love and see an ad. ‘Come on out and vote for me.’
Cruz didn't know what to make of it. He called Allred running a ‘Joe Biden campaign,’ right? ‘campaigning from the basement,’ and then he tried to call him an ‘extreme leftist.’ I mean, anything that Cruz has tried on Allred has not really stuck. Cruz has kind of gone back to the drawing board to say, Well, I'm just going to talk about how extreme every Democrat is and how I want to keep Texas Texas.
It really depends on how the campaign wants to bring it out. If the Republicans say, ‘Why would you want to consider voting for any of those Democrats? They don't know how to win. They always take defeat from the jaws of victory. Why would you want to vote for people like that?’ Whereas the Democrats can say, ‘This is the opportunity. This is the time, change history,’ a different style of inspiration for those types of voters.
BB: The big contest for Lubbock County is the county commissioner's seat in precinct 3, Gilbert Flores has been doing this for a while, and Cary Shaw, he's run for the office before. The county has had recent issues with the budget coming into the election. How could this race influence the next few years for Lubbock County?
DL: “Republicans see that seat as the crown jewel opportunity to really take hold of the county. Precinct 3 has been held by a Democrat for, I don't know how long. You look at the demographics of it, it's really made for one seat for a Democrat. Cary Shaw's raised a lot of money, he's spending a lot of money hoping to change that, but he didn't have a lot, Cary Shaw didn't have a lot of money four years ago. This is a political rematch, this is round two. Flores knows how to grassroots campaign, and he views district three as not wholesale, where you do the big ads and all that stuff, you’ve got to go out there and you have to meet them. You’ve got to talk to them. And he knows how to do that. Not to say Cary Shaw doesn't, but Cary Shaw has big money backers. He's got people who are working the doors for him. So it's been a different strategy this go around. I think when we look at precinct three, it is predominantly of the east side of Lubbock, the north side of Lubbock, and a lot of old Democrats in Slaton who are going to be a predominant factor in this. Not to say those in Idalou or those on the eastern part of New Deal won't have any big say. But when you just look at the sheer numbers of it, the bigger populations are in the city of Lubbock, and Gilbert knows how to win, he knows how to win those people. He knows how to win them over.
[Flores] is older, he's four years older. There's no question about that. But then again, how old is Cary Shaw? So I don't think age is a factor, but I think it takes a toll on a candidate when you've been campaigning for over a year, and that's for somebody who might be campaigning in their 20s. As you get older, it takes a toll on you. I think it'll be a little closer this time around than it was in 2020. But if Cary Shaw can crack that nut, if he can steal that crown jewel, then when we talk about the budget, that's going to put county judge Curtis Parrish in a pretty awkward position, because his only ally would be the county sheriff. With a new county commissioner coming in, with Mike Dalby for precinct 1; precinct 2 and 4, they're set for another year; they don't have to campaign until ‘26.
If Cary Shaw is able to find the Holy Grail, if he's able to really pull one off, then that's going to really change the dynamic on the County Commissioners Court. And they want to say –they being backers of commissioners two and four, precinct two and four– They want to say that they haven't passed any conservative budgets. I mean, they were able to pull that off. I'm not quite sure why they're having a lot of hesitation about stuff like this, but precinct three has long been this far reaching goal for Lubbock County Republicans.
BB: For Lubbock County Conservatives, it seems there's a real rock and a hard place there where they want to bring a conservative budget, but at the same time, the sheriff is coming in saying the jail is overcrowded, and public safety becomes a concern. How do you balance that?
DL: “Yeah, you're exactly right. You know, the Sheriff will go, we'll talk to anybody and say, ‘Yeah, you know, we're overrun with this. We may need to build a new jail,’ That's a bond election, how will that work out?
The one who was fighting a lot of commissioners two and four was the commissioner in precinct one. He lost his primary. So Mike Dalby's going to be coming in there. And I think he would be right in line with Commissioner 4 [Jordan] Rackler and Commissioner 2 [Jason] Corley. So they would have their three people that they would need to really pass whatever type of budget that they would want. When you listen to them talk, it's all public safety. They all want to say, public safety is top priority. Sheriff said, ‘Okay, I need this.’ And then you had two of them balk at it. Now, will they agree with that? No, but it doesn't matter if you agree with it. I mean, who's the professional knowing what goes on best at the county jail: the county commissioner or the county sheriff? I think I would take the county sheriff's word on that, no matter what party he'd be.”
Find details and possible work locations in the City of Lubbock's Proposition A, here.
BB: Here in the city, the propositions that we're looking at, the biggest being the $103 million street bond here in Lubbock. There's been some opposition to that, especially after we just two years ago passed a $200 million bond. Is that a justified concern?
DL: “For some, it is. For others, it's not. You have those who argue let's finish the previous bond before we get a new bond. Why have two bonds going on at the same time and in the same city? I think that seems like a pretty fair assessment, but at the same time, what those in favor of it argue is that the city is growing and we can't just wait on the old bond to finish before we bring in a new one. Inflation is never a guarantee that it will stay the same, the price may go up. And if we do this again in two years or four years, or whenever that last bond rolls off, the sticker price could be incredibly higher.
We can either deal with what we have now and plan for the future, or do what those who are against it say, ‘Doesn't matter, debt’s debt, and we need to wait on the old debt to roll off before we bring in new debt.’ Whenever it comes to bond elections, I'm often of the mindset that that any average voter who may not pay too much attention to it, and would walk in, if they've made it that far to the ballot, which it's the very end if you live in the city of Lubbock, and they'll go, ‘Well, yeah, I want better roads. Yes.’ So I have a pretty good hunch that it's probably going to pass. How close will it be? Well, I think it'll be closer than what others may want it to be. But in politics, a win's a win. And so if you're in favor of that road bond, you've got the road bond PAC, you've got this political action committee with a lot of money, and they're sending out mailers telling everybody who received it, you’ve gotta vote ‘yes.’ You’ve gotta keep Lubbock growing, gotta keep it moving. And that's their argument. The other pack that is around it has some signs, it's not as developed as the pro-Prop A PAC is, but they're arguing vote ‘no’ because of debt, and more road construction.”
BB: One thing that I've heard is Lubbock is growing faster than we can address and building new roads is one thing, but maintaining those roads requires continually having the budgets to back it up. So what is addressing the growth? building new roads or not building new roads to improve the ones we already have?
DL: “Growth, it can be a great problem to have, or it can be the worst problem you can have, and cities have to have some sort of an answer for it. There are people on the council who think we have to just deal with it. No matter what our debt is, we have to deal with it right then and there, and we have to plan so that this sort of stuff doesn't happen again. Make no mistake about it, Lubbock is a growing city, and it's growing in one particular part of the city, in one particular part of the county, and that's where you're going to see a lot of that particular bond that is being proposed here [for Prop A] is going to that part of of the city. I think it's interesting that the citizens committee that suggested this said, ‘We're not talking about certain roads. It's not our job to deal with maintenance.’ And you mentioned in there about how maintenance should be a priority. And in all, there are parts of the city where it's not, parts of the city where it is. And you know you only have so many crews. Every member on that city council, the mayor and city manager, and everyone else has their own priorities about what needs to be done. This is a great reason that we have elections.
Another interesting question is, how can, how can you attract people to want to live inside the loop? How can you attract people to want to live downtown or close to downtown, you know, how can you do that? I don't think the council is thinking about that too much. I think there are powerful people on the council who are thinking about westward. You know, as an old 80s song said, ‘Go west, my boy,’ that's where we're seeing a lot of our things happening. You can say that's where the growth is. That's fine, but you also have to have a reinvestment at the heart of the city. And who's going to fight for that? Who's going to argue for that? And there's one big part of that bond that's been controversial for as long as I've lived here. I swear you could watch them turn from Bruce Banner to the Hulk when you talk about Broadway and you talk about the brick roads. And it's not even a mile.”
BB: This was the problem with the bond before ‘22, right? For a lot of older Lubbockites, the bricks are iconic. That's downtown Lubbock and the Overtons, and a lot of nostalgia for Lubbock back in the day, but that also means those roads are getting very old. Do you think that the bricks on Broadway are going to kill the bond this year?
DL: “I don't think that's going to be it. I think it's the debt. I think it's not finishing the last bond. I think that would kill it. But Broadway continues to be this anchor and this point of contention that nobody can agree on. You know, keep it or get rid of it or preserve it in different parts of the city. I have my own thoughts about it, but I want to be objective here. But that is one of the most controversial things in the city, is about this historic set of brick roads. I don't see it as the anchor that it was back in 2020, I see it as a reason for people to say, ‘We need maintenance on that. Maintenance needs to do that, not a bond.’ But that may be a reason for some I don't think it's going to be a reason for the whole.
This city has gone through a lot of controversial things; it's dealt with culture wars, dealt with getting rid of Buddy Holly's home and the whole controversy with that, abortion. I've never seen a group of people get more upset about anything else than those brick roads. That one is, that's like the controversial issue within the city.”
BB: The other issue that people living on the west side of town are dealing with in the Frenship School District, they've got three different propositions because their school district continues growing like a weed. Give us your thoughts.
DL: “Yeah, that's big money. But they wanted to do a bond a couple years ago for like, half a billion dollars for a new school and people said yeah, go for it. It passed. I think these three bonds are going to have a lot of support. When you have a school that's growing as fast as Frenship, it's going to be tough not to want to support bonds for that. There's no question. You said growing like a weed, that's the best analogy for it. It is a fast-growing school district. And the leaders there think that's the best thing to really do, great. So, yeah, I see that that's going to pass, and it also ties into this road bond because you see that portion of the city either going to Lubbock-Cooper, and also having foot traffic for Frenship. And so I could see those who live in the city of Lubbock and are inside Frenship ISD school district voting in favor of the road bond and those ABC bonds.”
Find more on Frenship ISD's A,B, and C Propositions, here.
BB: Something that I think Lubbock County voters are used to is a lot of uncontested races. But there are a couple of exceptions this year, such as Noah Lopez running against Carl Tepper for District 84 in the Texas House. What do you think it feels like for people to see someone taking a shot like that?
DL: “Lopez is not really running an active campaign. But there is something to say about what happens from this campaign, to see in the newly drawn 84th district –that pretty much has inside of the loop and some other parts, but also Shallowater– what the floor for Democratic candidates will be. To see somebody who just put his name on the ballot, what is the absolute lowest amount that a candidate could get without trying anything at all; because in the last, not in ‘22 but in ‘20 and ‘18, you had two Democrats actively going for it, and they were just a little bit shy of 40%. So we know what the old district was when they tried really hard. What will this new district be without someone really trying? And then that's going to be a good building block for Lubbock-area Democrats to see, ‘Well, we know what you can do by not doing anything. What can you do when you put forth an effort?’”
BB: Education is on the ballot, Morgan Kirkpatrick is running against incumbent Aaron Kinsey for the State Board of Education. Kirkpatrick has been very vocal against private school vouchers but that decision ultimately comes to the Texas Legislature that convenes in January. What do you think this Texas legislative session is going to look like?
DL: “Going forward and in the legislature, I have a pretty good feeling that Dade Phelan’s going to retain being House Speaker. I think he's got a strong coalition, and I think the people around him are going to make sure that they fall in line. So I think that's, you know, the 50 or so people who are like, ‘No, I don't want them,’ well, I think that number will get smaller when their committee assignments are being dangled in front of them. That said, I think the number one thing that's going to happen in this legislative session is going to be the school voucher fight. I think the governor is going to mention it in his State of the State address. I think that's going to be one of the very top and contentious issues that's going to happen. And I say that for two reasons: because the governor wants it and I think depending on how the legislature looks going into this session, if Democrats are able to pick three or four seats up – gain three or four seats – that's going to put his whole voucher plan into some hot water. I don't know if it'll pass if the people who won their Republican primaries in March are not able to win in November, I think that's going to put some problems for the governor, but I think he'll try it anyway.
It is the worst-kept secret in Austin that Governor Abbott does not work with the legislature. I mean, you don't have to look far to get that information. So I think it'll be what he always does and it’ll be up to the lieutenant governor, up to people within the lieutenant governor and the House Speaker to figure it out. Of course, we know that lieutenant governor Dan Patrick and House Speaker Phelan don't like each other, both professionally and personally, a lot of conflicts that are there. They've never been able to iron them out. It's almost like a blood feud, like an old-style, old-school Texas vendetta between these two. I don't know if there's going to be a lot of support on either side to get vouchers, any sort of voucher program, to the finish line, let alone the fact that we don't know what the legislature will look like, nor do we know what kind of bill this will come up to be.
Look at something that they all agreed on in the 2023 session, which was property tax relief. That took them a whole session and then two special sessions to finally agree on it. I mean, we're talking over seven months of something that they agreed on in principle, you don't even have that going for you with the voucher program. There's not everybody who agrees with that in principle on the Republican side, and we don't even know what the bill is. So I don't know if it's going to pass.”
BB: What are the options for the legislature and the school districts if the governor is still in this hard-line stance? because administrators are getting desperate for help.
DL: “I think if he has that hard stance, if he continues that hard stance, and he doesn't get it, Governor is up for re-election in ‘26, and it would be incumbent upon anyone who wants to challenge him to constantly remind voters in Texas that your schools faced not just tremendous debt, your schools possibly were being consolidated and were being possibly closed because of this governor's action and inaction on this issue. I think that's what we're going to see in 2025 if that's the case, and schools are just going to be left holding the bag that's incredibly empty, and they're going, what do I do? You know, what are we supposed to do?”
BB: Texans in some of the more metro areas who may not be as familiar with small West Texas towns may not understand why the rural Republicans are a little more averse to this voucher issue. They may be asking why? ‘Why don't you want your kids to go to better schools?’
DL: “The whole argument was these few numbers of Republicans from the country, from the rural areas, were basically opposing this because they felt that that would siphon money away from their districts into these suburban-urban areas and would create a third stream of revenue going to another school system, and how that would affect them. It would do that by possibly cutting out their share of the revenue, and therefore having school districts and school boards and superintendents make a lot of tough choices that they weren't really planned to do, which could lead to closures and consolidations.
Why is that a big deal? Because in those areas, that's the main employer. If you go out to Dickens County and you find what the number one employer for that area is, it's probably going to be the consolidated school area in there. You go down to Borden County, there's one school [district] in Borden County, and that's Borden County. So you go out there to Idalou, and they say, ‘Well, you know, we don't have any cash anymore.’ You know, it's either going to the citizens to raise their taxes to help fund, or it's to shut the doors. That's been the ongoing conflict, and you have Republicans like Drew Darby out of San Angelo and Stan Lambert out of Abilene, they faced their opposition, but they were able to win. Others in those areas were not, like Steve Allison out of the San Antonio area.
But when we look at what's happened in other states with this, it's either made their state budget a gigantic deficit, or schools have had to close and consolidate. A good question to ask a lot of these people who advocate for these leaders, who advocate for these programs is, ‘What have you seen in other states that have led to better schooling, more student achievement than what's currently there?’ That's the ongoing argument that you hear from Republicans who are from the rural areas, is that's my main employer in my area. If I'm not able to provide that, then they'll have to cut custodial staff, or they'll have to cut a bus driver, or the teacher will have to be the custodian and be the bus driver, and they won't get extra pay for it.
The community is surrounded by the school, and if you take that away, what community do you have? That was what these rural Republicans were fighting for. They fought tooth and nail, and a lot of them lost their political careers over it. And they have often said I’d do it all over again; it’s worth the fight.”
BB: As always, there is still November 6. There are the days and weeks after this election, no matter what happens. How are you feeling about the coming year post-election?
DL: “One of the biggest things I love to remind people is you may live or die on what happens on Election Day, but people who may not have participated, or that's just any other day to them, have to go to work or do something on that Wednesday. And so this place has to be in a state, in a position where it needs to continue. I love this country, I love the state. I love the city. This is my home, and I very much am invested in what happens on November 5th, but I'm also very much invested on the 6th, the 7th, and the 8th, and as we go forward. I am fearful of those who may not have the outcome that they thought was going to happen on November 5th, on Election Day, and then we see the unfortunate events that take place and that can threaten our democracy and our very values that we hold dear in our Constitution and the fabrics of our foundings, that really disturbs me, and that goes for both sides. But I think with things being so close at the national and state level, we may not know what the results will be at the end of November 5th. We may not know until the 7th or the 8th. And I think listeners and fellow countrymen, fellow Texans, we have to be prepared for that. I honestly believe that whatever the results are, it's going to be fair and it's going to be free no matter who wins, and it's scary when that is thought of as being fraudulent because your side didn't win.”
BB: Many have been left to wonder about election fraud and manipulation concerns, particularly in the state of Texas, as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has driven a lot of these worries. What do you have to say for voters who may be fearful that our elections are being affected?
DL: “You know that is few and far between. I mean, you will hear reports of people who say, ‘I voted this way, but on my paper, it said something else.’ That's a user error. And so we have to be very careful that you are punching –if you’re using an electronic ballot– that you are touching the screen on the side that you want to touch, and then when it prints off it reflects as to how you did that. If that's not the case, you need to tell one of the election workers and that will be voided, and you can do it again. There is nobody from North Korea or Russia or Mars or Neptune or anything else manipulating our elections. They're not connected to the internet, so there's no way for this to happen in a feasible way. it's not feasible.
It needs to be pointed out that the Attorney General's Office, since 2004, has prosecuted about 200 to 250 fraudulent claims in our elections. That's been 20 years. There have been 10s of millions of ballots cast since then, and only about 200 to 250 have been prosecuted. That is an incredibly small percentage. Okay, so our elections are about as secure as they could ever be, and we need to take solace in the fact that we need everybody to get involved. And take solace in the fact that your vote will be counted and it will be treated as fair no matter who you support.”
BB: We're seeing a lot of people talking about election anxiety. As somebody who's made a career out of watching elections, what are some tips on how to handle the anxiety that people may be feeling watching this election?
DL: “Once you vote and you make up your mind, don't pay attention again until election night. If you vote on Election Day, then that's fine, but make up your mind. Make a plan to vote, vote and then just tune out. Go spend time with your family. Go watch some movies. I still have to watch Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. You know, it's Halloween season, go watch Frankenweenie. Go just spend some time with some family. If you're feeling that anxious, just make a plan, execute the plan and then go relax. Talk to somebody you know. Talk to members of your family, text them, just once you're done. Let it be done.”
For a list of early voting locations and times in Lubbock County, click here. Early Voting runs through Nov. 1.
Nov. 5 Election Day vote center locations and times for Lubbock County can be found here.