Verónica Carbajal went into the election with clear name recognition and a campaign team ready to work towards her election. As one local political consultant told us shortly after Carbajal announced that she was running, this “election is Carbajal’s to lose.” The consultant was arguing that with Carbajal’s name recognition, the short campaigning window and the expected low voter turnout, Carbajal was in good position to win the seat. Going into the runoff, Carbajal is four votes ahead facing an uphill battle against Josh Acevedo to claim the District 2 seat. What went wrong for Carbajal is likely on the minds of the Carbajal team today as they regroup to run again in the runoff against Acevedo. Acevedo’s team is preparing for the runoff, as well, but his messaging is unlikely to change much because Carbajal must now reengage voters and explain her support of Proposition K and her $400 million certificates of obligation vote to the voters she needs to win in the runoff.
The unofficial results of Saturday’s election show that Josh Acevedo and Verónica Carbajal will face off in a runoff, likely sometime soon after the holidays in January. Voter apathy in Saturday’s election will likely continue into the runoff forcing both campaigns to strategize on how to get voters to the polls that will vote for their respective candidates.
Among the political observers and the strategists behind each campaign there is an election autopsy being conducted, some more formally than others, to explain the results. Accepting that a runoff was inevitable because there were four candidates running is a small portion of why the results ended as they did. To believe the runoff was inevitable ignores the math behind the results.
Instead of, it is Carbajal’s election to lose, the dynamics of the election runoff has now shifted towards it is Acevedo’s election to lose.
The Election Calculus
The first obvious election calculation to consider is the 2,171 ballots cast in the election. Although the turnout was lower than in past elections, the number of ballots cast on Election Day shows that voters were motivated by something to vote on Election Day. Instead of the usual where the electorate votes during the early voting period, almost as many voters voted on Election Day as in early voting. Why did voters go to the polls on Election Day? What motivated them? Did their last-minute mobilization affect the outcome?
It is widely understood that voter apathy ruled this election cycle. There were 2,171 or 4.55% ballots cast. For comparison, during the May 2023 elections, 4,967 or 9.94% District 2 voters cast ballots. In the 2020 District 2 contest, which included Gutierrez, there were 24,416 ballots cast. The 2020 election was a presidential election and Carbajal ran for mayor. In that election, Gutierrez received 8,416 votes in her quest for the District 2 seat and Carbajal received 47,299 votes for the mayoral seat.
Saturday’s voter turnout was uncharacteristically lower. However, although we anticipated 56% of the ballots cast would come during the early voting period, the turnout Saturday on Election Day was 51.3%. However, many expected the turnout to be closer to 3,000 ballots instead of the 2,166 votes that were cast.
On the surface the voter modeling suggested that voters who voted in May on the Proposition K measure would mirror their votes by voting against Verónica Carbajal. Had that happened, somewhere between 60% to 82% of the voters would have cast votes for anyone but Carbajal. Voters rejected Proposition K by 82%.
That did not appear to happen as Carbajal attracted almost 36% of the vote from voters that averaged 79 years old – an older conservative voter that are the likely voters. Voters that seemingly rejected Proposition K about six months earlier seem to have not taken Carbajal’s support of Proposition K into account when casting a ballot.
This will become clearer as we continue to analyze the voting patterns. But to do so we need to understand how the campaigns reached the voters.
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The Ground Game
Two campaigns reached targeted voters directly at their homes before and during the early voting period. They were Josh Acevedo and Verónica Carbajal. Both campaigns relied on block walking to voters’ homes to get their support. Guterriez, on the other hand, did not raise campaign funds, did not block walk or reach voters outside of social media. The void left by Gutierrez allowed both Acevedo and Carbajal to influence the voters with their messaging.
Carbajal, who posted on social media that her campaign had talked to about 4,000 voters, was allowed to frame her messaging to the voters away from her $400 million vote on certificates of obligations and her support of Proposition K. Gutierrez, who was in the position to explain to voters Carbajal’s vote on the UMC certificates of obligations through her name recognition allowed Carbajal to frame her messaging away from her vote on the COs by not engaging with the voters.
Carbajal used a mailer and a door hanger to message the voters. Both the door hanger and the mailer that Carbajal delivered to voters had as its first item a rejection by Carbajal of raising property taxes. The mailer’s first item was “keep the property tax rate as low as possible and tighten the use of public resources.” The door hanger was likely designed and printed as the campaigning started and therefore lacks an important item that the mailer has, which seems to have been added in response to questions being raised about Carbajal’s support of certificates of obligations.
Carbajal’s mailer included the message that Carbajal will be “keeping the tax rate as low as possible,” like the door hanger. But Carbajal added in the mailer that she will not be “approving Certificates of Obligation for non-emergencies.” This was her stance during the El Paso Chamber of Commerce forum.
The moderator of the forum, Bob Moore of El Paso Matters, did not challenge Carbajal on her COs assertion by asking about her CO vote at UMC, just like Gutierrez did not challenge her on her UMC vote. It appears that Acevedo’s campaign did not either. This allowed Carbajal to not have to address her public stance against her previous vote.
Gutierrez’ lack of voter engagement allowed Carbajal to keep voters from connecting her support of Proposition K and the COs to their decision to vote in this election cycle. Voters seem to have not made the connection between Carbajal and her $400 million CO vote and support of Proposition K when they cast their ballots. This is demonstrated when looking closer at when and where ballots were cast and how the El Paso Progress SPAC seems to have influenced the voters. The analysis of the ballots cast suggests that voters were influenced enough after the early voting period to change who they were voting for.
Precinct By Precinct Analysis
There were 2,166 ballots cast in this election. In early voting, 1,117 ballots were cast, or 52% of the total. Early voting ballots include the ballots that are mailed in. On Election Day, 1,049, or 48% of the ballots were cast that day.
In early voting, Acevedo was slightly ahead of Carbajal with 37.69% of the votes. Gutierrez was a distant 20%. However, on Election Day, Gutierrez gained more votes moving forward to 28% while Acevedo dropped to 34% and Carbajal dropped to 35%. Gutierrez gained votes on Election Day. The reason, as will be shown, is a mailer that arrived in mailboxes after early voting ended and because Gutierrez began talking to voters.
Analyzing the ballots cast by precinct demonstrates this better.
Carbajal won 12 out of 27 (44%) precincts. Acevedo won 14 out of 27 (52%) precincts and Gutierrez only won two precincts (7%).
However, as can be observed from the precinct-by-precinct analysis, Carbajal fell behind on Election Day by 50 votes or 6% and Acevedo fell behind by 68 or 9%. Gutierrez, on the other hand, gained 69 votes, or 13%. Although the losses and the gains did not materially affect the outcome, they demonstrate that voting patterns began to change on Election Day. This becomes more pronounced when the change between early voting and Election Day ballots is examined at the precinct level.
Carbajal lost support in 16 out of 27 (59%) precincts on Election Day. Likewise, Acevedo also lost support in 16 out of 27 (59%) precincts. Gutierrez, on the other hand, outperformed in 16 out of 27 precincts. This suggests that voters were taking votes away from both Acevedo and Carbajal and giving their votes to Gutierrez.
This is important to note as planning for the runoff election begins because voters started rejecting Carbajal on Election Day. The reason for the change will be important for both campaigns to understand to strategize their voter outreach.
What changed? Why did voters mobilize away from Carbajal on Election Day?
The Tale Of Two Mailers
During the last two days of early voting, two events happened that seem to have influenced the election outcome. The first is that there are indications that Judy Gutierrez started engaging with voters directly a few days before Election Day. The biggest event, though, was a second mailer sent by the El Paso Progress PAC that began to arrive in voter’s mailboxes after early voting had ended.
This mailer emphasized Verónica Carbajal’s support of Proposition K. This suggests that voters began to understand that votes made to Carbajal were votes in support of Proposition K, and thus the voters started to cast their ballots towards the other candidates on Election Day.
Dirty Politics
The two mailers sent by the PAC have been described by Carbajal supporters as “a dirty campaign” against her with Carmen Rodriguez labeling the messaging as “ugly negativism.” Defining the act of presenting facts as “ugly negativism” betrays the tribalism that is El Paso’s political scene. Instead of countering the fact that Carbajal voted for certificates of obligation by presenting her reasoning behind her vote, the narrative attempts to distract by arguing that presenting the facts is “ugly negativism.”
Negative campaigning is often conflated as both offensive behaviors and substantial criticism which are two different things. There is a difference between critical and civil arguments and character assassination. As a 2022 paper studying negative and positive campaigning explained, “criticism is a central element of political campaigns.” It adds that “criticism in campaigns can provide valuable information for citizens and lead to more informed voting decisions.” Likewise, the paper adds that “some forms of criticism can also impair citizens’ political attitudes, increase public disengagement, and eventually harm the quality of democracy.”
Although the two PAC mailers focused on Carbajal’s factual activities, instead of attacking her as an individual, when her supporters like Carmen Rodriguez, labels the advertisements as “ugly negativism,” she, in fact, is participating in dirty politics by accusing Carbajal’s opponents of running a negative campaign. Accusing a candidate of running a negative campaign is in itself a technique used for dirty politics.
Campaign funding is also important to understand as it translates to votes received.
Cost Per Vote
Two campaigns and a PAC spent the most in this election cycle. The Josh Acevedo Campaign spent $10,069 as of their last campaign finance report. That translates into $23.92 per vote the campaign received. Verónica Carbajal’s Campaign spent $8,453.60 in the same campaign period. Per vote, Carbajal spent $20.42. Gutierrez did not report any expenditures.
However, the El Paso Progress PAC, which supported Judy Gutierrez and delivered the two mailers to voters reported spending $3,247.48. However, a direct correlation of votes for Gutierrez by the PAC’s expenditure cannot be attributed to the PAC because the votes that moved away from Carbajal because of the PAC’s activities may have gone to Acevedo instead of Gutierrez. The PAC’s expenditure was substantially less than either Acevedo’s or Carbajal’s campaigns and its two mailers seem to have had a greater impact on the Election Day results than the activities of the Acevedo and Carbajal campaigns.
The Calculus For The Runoff
Saturday’s election results suggest that Verónica Carbajal is vulnerable in the runoff because of her support of Proposition K. If voters voting in the runoff vote as they did in May, their votes in the runoff would signal that Carbajal faces an uphill battle to win the District 2 seat.
That, however, will depend on whether Carbajal’s support of Proposition K becomes part of the political narrative in the minds of the voters. Likewise, Carbajal can capitalize on Josh Acevedo relinquishing his El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) Board of Trustees seat with over a year left in his term. Acevedo’s term ends in May 2025, which would force the school’s taxpayers to pay for an election to fill the seat he will relinquish should he win the District 2 city council seat.
Disclosure
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