The Texas Green Party is running a record number of candidates in 2012. These include statewide candidates for president (Jill Stein), U.S. Senate (David Collins), the Supreme Court of Texas (Charles Waterbury for Place 4 and Jim Chisholm for Place 6), and railroad commissioner (Chris Kennedy for the post normally renewed this cycle and Josh Wendel for the unexpired term), as well as 13 U.S. House candidates, 13 Texas House candidates, two Texas Senate candidates, and nominees for more than a half dozen other positions.
The party’s political future, however, hinges on qualifying for ballot access in 2014. In order to ensure the Green Party’s candidates a place on the 2014 ballot, and hence the ability to compete for posts ranging from governor to county commissioner that year, a Green Party candidate this fall must win at least 5 percent of the vote in a statewide election contest. If the party fails to pass this threshold, its only route to the ballot in 2014 would involve a costly and difficult petition process where, absent assistance from Republicans similar to that received in 2010, it would most likely be unsuccessful. Fortunately for the Green Party, the Texas Democratic Party has made this task of remaining on the ballot much easier by failing to run candidates for multiple statewide posts, including two where there are Green Party nominees: Texas Supreme Court-Place 4 and Railroad Commissioner-Unexpired Term.
In both the Texas Supreme Court-Place 4 and Railroad Commissioner-Unexpired Term races there is a Republican, a Libertarian, and a Green candidate. In the former, the Green Party’s standard bearer, Charles Waterbury, is competing against Republican John Devine and Libertarian Tom Oxford. Devine obtained his spot on the November ballot by defeating incumbent Justice David Medina in a divisive Republican primary. In the latter, Green candidate Josh Wendel and Libertarian Jaime Perez are challenging incumbent Republican Barry Smitherman. In these two contests, the Green candidate’s prospects for obtaining at least 5 percent of the vote are boosted considerably by the absence of a Democratic candidate for two principal reasons.
First, the lack of a Democratic Party candidate combined with the considerable popularity of straight-ticket voting in Texas means that many voters will not cast a ballot in this race. This will noticeably reduce the size of the denominator used to calculate the 5 percent threshold, and hence lower the minimum number of votes the Green Party candidate needs to win. As an example, in 2010 4.94 million and 4.85 million votes were cast in the lieutenant governor and railroad commissioner elections, each of which featured a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian and Green. In the race for the post of comptroller of public accounts however, where the Republican incumbent was challenged by only a Libertarian and a Green, 3.98 million ballots were cast.
Second, without a Democrat on the ballot, at least some voters who normally support Democrats will opt for the more ideologically proximate Green Party candidate instead of backing either a Republican or Libertarian. For instance in 2010, the Green Party candidates who competed in the two above-mentioned races where there also was a Democrat garnered 44,903 (lieutenant governor) and 72,291 (railroad commissioner) votes, while the Green Party candidate in the comptroller race won between five and three times more (252,233).
In 2010 there were no races in Texas where one could argue that the presence of a Green Party candidate on the ballot theoretically “cost” the Democratic Party’s candidate the election. Thus there were no cases like the 2000 presidential election in Florida where it is reasonable to assume that had the Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader, not been on the ballot, Democrat Al Gore would have defeated Republican George W. Bush and been elected president or like the 2010 Texas State House District 48 race where had Libertarian Ben Easton not run, Republican Dan Neil almost certainly would have defeated Democrat Donna Howard.
In 2012, the Green Party is running candidates in several races where a handful of votes could potentially determine the victor. Most prominent are the state’s only two competitive (out of 36) U.S. House elections in congressional district 23 (which ranges from the San Antonio suburbs to the outskirts of El Paso) and CD-14 (Brazoria County roughly south of FM 1462, Galveston County and Jefferson County). In CD-23, Green candidate Ed Scharf is running against Republican incumbent Francisco “Quico” Canseco, Democrat Pete Gallego and Libertarian Jeffrey Blunt while in CD-14, Green candidate Rhett Rosenquest Smith is competing against Democrat Nick Lampson, Republican Randy Weber and Libertarian Zach Grady. In a third competitive contest where a small number of votes could tilt the election one way or another, Green candidate Remington Alessi faces off against Democratic incumbent Adrian Garcia and Republican Louis Guthrie in the race for Harris County Sheriff.
Mark P. Jones is the Baker Institute’s fellow in political science as well as the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies and chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University.