Early voting in Texas is lagging behind the rapid pace set in the 2018 midterm elections
AUSTIN — Nearly 3 million Texans have already cast their ballots ahead of the Nov. 8 election, but the pace of early and mail-in voting appears to be lagging behind the break-neck pace of the 2018 midterms, figures posted on the secretary of state's website show.
Derek Ryan, a Republican consultant who operates a data-crunching company that can identify the demographic characteristics of people voting in Texas elections, said his analysis of the participants in this year's early voting shows about 46% who have cast early or mail-in ballots so far have a history of voting in the Republican primary. Only 31% have a history of voting Democrat.
"Right now, it seems like the voting has been heavily Republican," Ryan said. "If there's good news for Democrats, it's that there's still a week to go in early voting."
The wild card, Ryan said, is the people with no history of voting in the primaries. They make up about 22% who had voted through Saturday. Early voting started Oct. 24 and ends Friday.
According to the secretary of state's figures posted Monday, about 16.8% of Texas' 17.7 million registered voters have already cast ballots. Many of the state's largest urban counties appear to be lagging in overall turnout so far. In Harris County, home to Houston, turnout was about 15.5%. Dallas County's figure was 14%. Tarrant County, anchored by Fort Worth and Arlington, reported a 16% turnout. El Paso's turnout was just above 10%.
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The urban outliers were Travis, with 18.7%, and Bexar, with 17.4%. With the exception of Tarrant, the state's largest urban counties have been reliably Democratic in recent election cycles.
The suburban counties of Denton and Collin near Dallas-Fort Wort and Montgomery near Houston, which generally trend Republican, were showing turnout rates of around 20%. Turnout so far in Nueces County was 16.4%. Taylor County's turnout was 17.6%, less than a point above the overall Texas turnout. Tom Green County was 16.6%, just a fraction under the state's pace.
The 2018 midterms generated a wave of excitement in Texas when the state saw an overall turnout rate of 53%, and nearly three-quarters of the total votes were cast either early or by mail.
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Ryan said it's doubtful that final turnout numbers will match those of 2018.
"It'll probably be closer to the 2014," he said, noting that turnout for that midterm was around 34%. "Or maybe an average of 2018 and 2014."
John C. Moritz covers Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Contact him at jmoritz@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @JohnnieMo.
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Here's how Texas stands so far in early voting turnout for 2022 midterms
