Republicans Edge Ahead in Texas Early Voting's Final Stretch as the Primary-History Gap Flips
Through Sunday the early electorate's partisan histories were dead even. By Tuesday, voters with Republican primary histories led 32.3 to 31.9 - the late surge Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick predicted, arriving with two days of early voting left.
HOUSTON - More than 5.1 million Texans had voted early through Monday - 26.9 percent of registered voters, according to TexPolls - with in-person turnout running 56 percent ahead of the same point in the 2022 midterm. By Wednesday the Secretary of State's Office put the early total at 5.5 million people, 29 percent of the state's 19 million registered voters, FOX 7 Austin reported, even as wait times at most Austin-area locations eased in a midweek lull whose meaning - surge ending, or calm before a Friday dash - nobody could yet prove.
Inside those totals, the mix has turned. Through Sunday, in-person early voters with a Democratic primary history and those with a Republican one were dead even. By Tuesday, Republican primary voters had edged ahead, 32.3 percent to 31.9 percent, per theoelections' tracker, which sorts voters by past primary participation. That is the late Republican surge Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick predicted, and there is room for more of it: about 2.1 million Texans who voted in a recent GOP primary still had not cast a ballot as of Sunday, according to an analysis by voter data analyst Derek Ryan cited by The Texas Tribune. Hinojosa's side of the ledger runs through new voters: Hispanic voters made up 18 percent of the early vote through Sunday, a point above 2024 and two above 2022, per the Tribune, and more than 40 percent of early voters who skipped 2024 are Hispanic, according to VoteHub's Zachary Donnini.
Every analyst touching these numbers attaches the same warning, and it belongs in bold type: early-vote data shows who is turning out, not how they voted, and Texas does not register voters by party. "We don't know how people are voting," Democratic strategist Matt Angle told the Tribune. Ryan expects 20 to 30 percent of all votes to be cast from Wednesday through Friday, meaning much of the picture is still unsettled. Early voting ends Friday, October 30; there is no voting Saturday, Sunday or Monday; and Election Day is Tuesday, November 3 - when the remaining Texans, including Harris County's still-unvoted, settle what the trackers can only sketch.
