A Look At Libertarian Performance

As I mentioned earlier, here’s my look at Libertarian performance. I did run some spreadsheets to get my data in line, by the way.

Historical Libertarian performance in Texas House races is difficult to determine. First off, the only cycles that can be compared are 2002, 2004 and 2006 because anything prior was done in districts with differnt boundaries which will not provide for an accurate comparison.

Further causing difficulties in evaluating historic performance is the fact that only four Texas House races featured a Libertarian candidate in 2002, 2004, and 2006. While several races did feature candidates in 2006 and 2004 or 2002, making a comparison between two stes of data did not, I believe, tell the story that three sets would.

Looking at the three races, HDs 17, 50, and 134, though, Libertarians raised their percentages successively between 2002 and 2006.

The first thing I did was decide to calculate an average for the three cycles for each of the districts for each cycle. A “three year performance average,” or average of the multiple cycles.

For House District 17, the average was 2.40.
For House District 50, the average was 2.40.
For House District 134, the average was 1.62.

Then, for actual comparison, I calculated an average for the two cycles 2002 and 2004.

For HD 17, the 02-04 average was 2.01.
For HD 50, the two cycle average was 3.39.
For HD 134, the two cycle average was

In 2006, without exception, all three Libertarian candidates out performed the two-year average in 2006.

In HD 17, the Libertarian outperformed the two-year average by 0.79.

In HD 50, the Libertarian outperformed the two-year average by 2.86.

In HD 134, the Libertarian outperformed the two-year average by 0.57.

As such, I’m not sure if it is a situation of Libertarians “over performing,” in districts like 118, which had the single-highest Libertarian candidate percentage in any race with a Democrat and Republican on the ballot, or a simple trend where Libertarian candidates are simply gaining some steam.

There are cases for both, but without precinct-by-precinct county-level results, it’s difficult to tell.

I would offer some speculation, however.

In terms of overperforming, I’d say that’s possible. And, by “overperforming,” I mean beating statwide and in-district averages and trends for Libertarian candidates by rediculous numbers for no apparrent reason. IN HD 118, it seems to me that overperforming may be the answer because it simply doesn’t seem plausable that there are actually that many die-hard Libertarians in the district. There also maybe factors like error bceause of electronic voting machines, voter confusion, etc. One must also take into consideration, however, that Libertarians had quite the spotlight on their party this year because of the CD 22 race in which Bob Smither was the only other candidate actually on the ballot besides Democrat Nick Lampson. It very well could be that instances like that, coupled with the press that the Libertarian Party got from some outlets early in the cycle because they fielded so many candidates actually may have influenced some people to vote for Libertarians either because they actually believe in those principals or (more likely) simply because it seemed like a vogue alternative.

As for overperforming, I’d also say that independent candidates like Kinky Friedman may very well have caused some influx in Libertarian Party numbers. While I have no idea yet on stats about all the “new” voters Friedman was supposed to attract, but it is safe to say they were anything but typical voters.

After next session starts, when results are broken down by house districts and posted on the web, it will be interesting to analyze Friedman’s turnout in districts where Libertarians likely overperformed (like 118) and see what Friedman’s margin was.

In districts like these three however, where there are several cycles to look at, it seems plausable to say that Libertarians are simply gaining ground. I’d say any “ground gaining” is simply because of Republicans being disillusioned by their own candidates and simply failing to vote for Republicans because they feel the Libertarians are a better alternative.