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- .- :dP/f -. - .' - - FINAL REPORT - DATE: January 10, 1994 TO: Mayor Kathy M. Morris Members of the City Council ¡ FRO L. Tucker Gibson Bill Rives Gibson Research Group, Inc. SUBJECT: San Marcos Municipal Election Analysis 1980-93 This report presents results of a demographic and statistical analysis of San Marcos I municipal elections between 1980 and 1993, focusing on patterns of support given candidates for Mayor and Council by voters of different racial and ethnic groups. The report consists of three main sections, Analysis, Findings and Conclusions. A technical appendix covers methodology. Additional appendices contain the censuS data and the official election returns we used in our analysis. Two key data tables, Table 1 and the Appendix Table, to which we refer in the course of our discussion, follow the Conclusions section. ~ ANALYSIS According to the official canvasses, there were 29 contested elections for Mayor and City Council between 1980 and 1993 for which voting returns by precinct are available. The oldest election we examined was the 1980 Place 4 Special Election v 1 by Tarbutton in a field of five candidates, including one Hispanic candidate ( jz) who polled second. The most recent elections we analyzed were the 1993 F ~e 3 and Place 4 Generals and the 1993 Place 3 Runoff. In selecting elections for analysis, we chose those with twO or more named candidates for Mayor or CitY Council. We included write-in votes in turnout for contested races, but we did not consider a race with only one candidate and a handful of write-in votes a contested race; such races cannot be analyzed statistically with respect to candidate support from different racial/ethnic groups. We should note that during the 13-year period we examined, a number of Council candidates did run unopposed, including several Hispanic candidates. One might interpret lack of opposition as a clear indication of the greater popularity of such candidates in the general community. The results of our election analysis are shown in the Appendix Table (which can be found immediately following the text of this report). The first column of the table contains the name of each candidate running, arranged by eiection year and office sought. A (W) appearing after a name identifies the winner (or the top-polling can- didate, in the case of general elections subsequently decided by run off). An (M) appearing after a name identifies an ethnic minority candidate; in the 29 elections we examined, all ethnic minority candidates were Hispanic. All candidates who are not specifically designated "ethnic minority" by an (M) are Anglo. We should note at this point that identification of ethnic minority candidates rested with the CitY in this analysis.