We have work to do!
The statewide votes across the whole ballot reflect that we have work to do:
57.20% - Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan
41.36% - Barack Obama/Joe Biden
56.63% - Ted Cruz
40.45% - Paul Sadler
53.73% - Nathan Hecht
41.88% - Michele Petty
55.51% - Sharon Keller
41.22% - Keith Hampton
These results are only a marginal improvement (on average) over the statewide results in 2010 (we actually lost ground at the top of the ticket from 2010 to 2012 but we've made some down-ballot progress since then):
54.97% - Rick Perry
42.29% - Bill White
61.78% - David Dewhurst
34.83% - Linda Chavez-Thompson
64.05% - Greg Abbott
33.66% - Barbara Ann Radnofsky
59.87% - Debra Lehrmann
37.26% - Jim Sharp
More troubling is the trend which shows no statewide improvement from 2008 (actually, we have slipped backward a bit since 2008):
55.45% - John McCain/Sarah Palin
43.68% - Barack Obama/Joe Biden
54.82% - John Cornyn
42.83% - Richard J. (Rick) Noriega
51.09% - Dale Wainwright
45.88% - Sam Houston
51.64% - Tom Price
45.53% - Susan Strawn
These numbers have a real world significance we would be foolish to ignore.
We cannot fix the problem until we diagnose the problem and understand the magnitude of our task.
If we want to move forward -- if we want 2014 to be a positive step ahead and not a step backward like 2010 was -- we need to start work today.