Texas Early Voting Rate Is 23.4 Percent After Seven Days - Ahead of 2022, Just Behind the 2018 Beto Year

Nearly 4.5 million Texans cast a ballot in the first seven days of early voting - outpacing the turnout rate of the 2022 midterm election but slightly behind 2018, when Democrat Beto O'Rourke fell 2.6 points shy of toppling U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. From October 19 through Sunday, 23.4 percent of registered Texas voters had cast a ballot in person or by mail, according to data from the Texas secretary of state. In 2018, the turnout was 24.3 percent in the first seven days of early voting.

Derek Ryan, a Republican consultant and data analyst, expects the pace to increase this week toward a busy Friday close, and predicts as many as 10 million Texans may turn out, which would put 2026's final turnout in the neighborhood of 2018's 53 percent. His analysis of the first seven days found voters who had previously voted in a Democratic primary accounted for 35 percent of ballots cast, slightly ahead of 33 percent for Republican primary voters, with about 29 percent having not previously voted or participated only in a general election. "This is actually new territory," Ryan said. "I don't think that I ever recall a point where voters with previous Democratic primary history have outnumbered voters with previous Republican primary history." GOP strategist Vinny Minchillo said the initial Democratic surge shows their enthusiasm remains higher, but it has also driven Republican turnout: "I have to say on behalf of Republicans everywhere, I am cautiously optimistic." Democratic strategist Matt Angle pointed to strong turnout in urban counties and rural voters accounting for less than 25 percent of votes cast - and added the caution: "we don't know how people are voting."

The analysts' other shared warning is built into how Texas counts. Texas voters do not register by political party, so the partisan makeup of the early vote is estimated from primary history and demographics, and each county self-reports its daily results. "I think there's sometimes a tendency to over-interpret early vote numbers because we don't have good benchmarks," said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University. "It's an evolving process, and every election tends to be a little unique." The records underneath are not in dispute: Harris County set a record for first-day early voting turnout in a midterm, Dallas County set a record for the most early votes on day one of any election, and a record 19 million Texans are registered to vote in the November 3 election - 7.7 percent more than were registered ahead of the 2022 midterm.