Although the presidential and many other national elections remain unresolved, El Paso’s election results are in, in preliminary format. Although yet to be finalized, El Paso voters know who won the election.
As expected, El Pasoans voted for Joe Biden. Biden received 168,801 votes to Donald Trump’s 81,235, according to preliminary County election data. The presidential race remains undecided as votes are outstanding in several key states. As expected, the state Democrats won their races in El Paso.
The Mayoral Race
As predicted by the El Paso Politics, Oscar Leeser received most of the votes cast. At 42.48% of the vote, Leeser will face off against the incumbent Dee Margo, who got 24.73% of the vote. Challenger Veronica Carbajal received 21.92% of the vote, bringing her close to upsetting Margo. Carbajal’s showing was better than our polling model suggested.
Carlos Gallinar brought in the tail end of the top four mayoral candidates with 7.35% of the vote.
Incumbents historically do poorly in runoffs, the latest example being the Vince Perez loss to Iliana Holguin. It is our belief that absent any major controversies, Oscar Leeser will prevail in the runoff against Dee Margo.
City Council Races
City Council District 2 incumbent Alexsandra Annello will faceoff a second time against Miriam Gutierrez in a runoff election. As stated above, it is difficult for incumbents to win runoffs. In District 3, Cassandra Hernandez kept her seat.
In District 4, incumbent Sam Morgan will face challenger Joe Molinar in a runoff election. Morgan, who is facing criminal charges will have a difficult time in the runoff. In the race for the open District 7 race, Aaron Montes came in short at 43.33% to Henry Rivera’s 56.67% of the votes cast.
Our Mayoral Polling
El Paso Politics predicted a strong lead by Oscar Leeser and a runoff against the incumbent Dee Margo. Our predictive model was within the margin of error, except for the Veronica Carbajal campaign, which we underestimated. Nationally there is an ongoing debate over whether polling models are archaic or wrong. In El Paso we were criticized for releasing our polling data ahead of the election.
Our model has been validated. Our exit polling model uses a mixture of technology and traditional polling to arrive at our conclusions. Our model continuously adapts to changes, like the Covid-19 crisis.
How We Do It
El Paso Politics first identifies likely voters and then tracks them throughout the early voting period to identify when they cast a vote. We then contact the voter in their preferred method of engagement, either through traditional in-person or telephone contact or via their preferred digital platform, asking them to share how they voted. The information we collect is then added to our predictive model and the results are tabulated.
The fact is that exit polling is a snapshot in time of what the voters are thinking. Combined with a historical context and outreach, our predictive model provides a reasonable expectation of the outcome. Because it is snapshot it cannot change the outcome of the election nor can it influence an election. Polling is just an observation derived from data points that voters release online and in person.
The question most often asked is why are we different from the traditional polls. The answer is that we reach voters where they are more comfortable providing us the data we need. We also do not assume the voter cast a vote, as we know they cast a vote when we contact them.
El Paso Politics adheres to the idea that it is our job to provide the information to our readers. Our readers then decide how to use the data we provide.
Texas Blue
There has been an ongoing public discussion that predicted that Texas would turn blue. As of 6:30 a.m., this morning, the Texas is still counting ballots. However, Trump leads with 52.2% of the vote against Biden’s 46.3%. It looks like Texas will remain red.
The Dallas Morning News reported on October 22, 2020 that Beto O’Rourke and other Texas Democrats were urging the Biden Campaign not to ignore Texas.
There is speculation that Beto O’Rourke intends to run for Texas governor in the upcoming Texas elections. This has not been confirmed. However, Republican John Cornyn kept his Senate seat with 53.7% of the vote against challenger Democrat Mary Hegar with 43.7% of the vote. O’Rourke will face an uphill battle in a run for governor.
