By Jeff Barton
The Buda and Kyle areas are becoming more influential in county elections, an analysis of data from this year’s general election shows.
Compared to eight years ago – the last time there was also an open election for president and a year when there was, like this year, a county-wide bond election on the November ballot – the percent of total voters who came from the county seat in San Marcos fell sharply while both Buda and Kyle upped their percentage of the total vote.
The Dripping Springs area and the Wimberley area both stayed about the same but declined slightly as a percentage of the county vote.
Reflecting the county’s population surge, many more people are now registered in each community – 31 percent more in the Dripping-Driftwood area, 32 percent more in the Wimberley Valley, and 34 percent more in San Marcos and its suburbs. But registration numbers in Kyle and its surrounding subdivisions have grown 53 percent since 2008, and in the greater Buda area, 72 percent.
Where different communities meet on a map it can be hard to judge where all the residents of a voting box should be apportioned, but by any measure Kyle and Buda are showing political muscle.
Turnout numbers – those residents who actually voted rather than just registering – also show Buda and Kyle increasing in strength faster than other communities in the county. Turnout in the Kyle area increased the most – 66 percent over 2008 – followed by the Buda area (58 percent increase).
Turnout in the voting boxes from the Wimberley and Dripping Springs-Driftwood areas each grew about 19 percent. Turnout in San Marcos area voting boxes – where growth has been fueled in many areas by young apartment dwellers and college students — actually fell from 2008.
Despite its relative decline in strength, the area around the county seat in San Marcos still voted more total citizens than any other part of the county, even while its percentage of the total vote shrunk, as has been happening now for decades.
San Marcos registered more people than any other part of the county over the last eight years, in raw numbers – but the increase was less than half the percentage increase in the Buda area. What’s more, when it comes to influencing elections, San Marcos turnout lagged far behind high-percentage turnout areas like Dripping , Wimberley and the rural areas around Driftwood.
Though growing at a slower pace in registrations and the number of new people voting, the county’s most affluent neighborhoods – in the western Hill Country, stretching down FM 150 and FM 967 to the outskirts of Kyle and Buda – continue to vote in disproportionate numbers, exaggerating the size of their populations. Despite big growth in population and even registrations and new voters, the percentage turnout in the county’s two largest cities – San Marcos and Kyle – continues to be much lower, especially in voting boxes with large numbers of young people and more modest homes or apartments, including many traditional Latino neighborhoods.
The percentage of registered voters who voted on election day (even though higher this election in many parts of the Kyle area) generally ranged from about 40 to about 50 percent east of Interstate 35 and in San Marcos boxes with high numbers of young people. By comparison, voters in the mostly white, mostly affluent neighborhoods of the Hill Country were more likely to cast ballots. In Wimberley, more than 70 percent of voters when to the polls and in parts of the Driftwood-Drippings area that number climbed to 80 percent or higher (86 percent in Goldenwood).
The city of Buda also voted in heavy numbers (74 percent), with voter turnout in Buda area neighborhoods along FM 1626 and FM 967 almost that high. Turnout in the “old town” areas of Kyle, by comparison, was 52 percent, and in the Uhland-Green Pastures area east of Kyle and along the Caldwell County line, an area dotted by mobile home subdivisions as well as newer stick-built homes, only four in 10 registered voters went to the polls.
