Harris County Early Voting Passes 862,000 Through Wednesday, and Day 10 Set a Midterm Record of Its Own
Wednesday's 78,747 in-person voters were the most on a tenth day of early voting in any midterm since at least 1998. With two days left, 31.4 percent of the county has voted - and 1.88 million registered voters have not.
HOUSTON - Harris County's early-voting surge is not slowing down; it is setting records in layers. On Wednesday, the tenth day of early voting, 78,747 people voted in person - the most on the tenth day of any midterm in records going back to 1998, clearing the previous high of 58,847 set in 2022, according to ABC13's early vote tracker, which is built on Harris County Elections data. Through ten days, 820,979 people have voted in person, the most at this point of any midterm; the previous mark was 605,869, in 2018. Counting mail ballots, 862,660 Harris County residents have voted early - 31.4 percent of the county's 2,746,177 registered voters, well ahead of the 22.0 percent recorded at the same point in 2022 and ahead of every midterm from 1998 through 2018.
The other side of the ledger is just as large: 1,883,517 registered voters - 69 percent of the county - have not voted yet. They have two early-voting days left, Thursday and Friday, at any of the county's 75 early voting sites, and then Election Day itself on Tuesday, November 3. History says the last early day will be a rush: in 2022 the final Friday brought in 106,677 voters, more than any single day that year, and this year's first day - 104,656 in-person voters, itself a midterm record - showed what a motivated Harris County looks like at the doors.
All of the tracker's figures are unofficial until the county reconciles them after Election Day, and they describe turnout, not choices: nothing in an early-vote count says how anyone voted. What the numbers do settle is scale. A midterm electorate that has already outrun every predecessor at this point, in the largest county in Texas, is the ground on which the state's Senate race, its governor's race and Harris County's own contests will be decided over the next five days.
