Today’s going to be a numbers-heavy post. Let’s start with Texas Elects, giving us a penultimate day summary:
Early voting in person ended today (Friday) for the July 14 primary runoff and special elections.
Through yesterday (Thursday), 532K people have voted in the Democratic runoff statewide – 193K by mail and 339K in person – which is already the fourth highest total since 1990. The number of voters will almost certainly eclipse the 2014 total today (Friday) and should easily pass the 2002 total on Election Day. The highest number of Democratic runoff voters since 1990 was in 1994, when 747K people voted in the runoff statewide.
Nearly 349K people have voted in the Republican runoff in those counties and portions of counties with runoff races – 97K by mail and 251K in person. Despite the lack of a statewide race, the number of Republican runoff votes cast is already the fifth highest in state history, trailing only the past four election cycles. Turnout is on pace to eclipse all but the 2014 (1.36M) and 2012 (1.11M) totals.
Statewide Democratic turnout through yesterday was 3.25% of all registered voters, and Republican turnout was 2.13% of all registered voters, not just those in areas with runoff races. Combined turnout for all of 2018 was 5.7%, and it was 4.0% in 2016.
The reference to 2014 is surely a mistake, as there were only 201K votes cast in the Senate runoff between David Alameel and Keisha Rogers that year. There were 434K votes in the 2018 gubernatorial runoff between Andrew White and Lupe Valdez, but 2020 was already past that total as of Thursday. I’ve looked at some other years but am just not sure what that third “highest since 1990” total may be.
I can tell you where we are as of Friday statewide:
Election Mail Early Total Mail %
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D primary 114,886 886,336 1,001,222 11.5%
R primary 91,415 987,744 1,079,159 8.5%
D runoff 199,657 447,470 647,127 30.9%
R runoff 99,939 311,222 411,161 24.3%
We have now topped the 2002 Senate runoff between Ron Kirk and Victor Morales (620K), and I have no doubt we will blow past the 1994 level on Tuesday. That’s not too shabby. Data on the Secretary of State website only goes back to 1992, so I don’t know what the 1990 primary runoffs looked like, but 1990 was the last year of Democratic statewide dominance in Texas. That’s not a bad harbinger to echo.
How much does any of this mean, though? Erica Greider thinks Republicans should be worried.
“I think we’re seeing the ramifications of having failed Republican leadership, and no one is seeing it more than those of us here in Texas,” said Billy Begala, a spokesman for the Texas Democratic Party.
Begala made his remarks Friday morning, the last day of early voting in advance of Tuesday’s primary runoff elections.
“It didn’t have to be this bad,” he said of the resurgence of COVID-19 in Texas. “It really didn’t.”
[…]
The coronavirus has complicated elections administration. Democratic officials have been urging Texans to vote by mail, if they’re eligible. And Texans who’ve gone to the polls in person have noticed unusual precautions, in most of the state’s major counties. In Harris County, for example, voters have been provided with rubber finger cots and disinfectant wipes as well as the traditional “I voted” stickers.
Still, turnout — which is typically abysmal for runoff elections in Texas — has been higher than expected through the early voting period. As of Thursday, some 900,000 voters had cast ballots across the state, a majority of them in the Democratic primary runoff.
“The key takeaway is that if we’re able to make voters feel safe, and of course be safe, then it’s a very positive experience for them,” Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins said Friday.
The turnout through the early-voting period, he continued, raises the prospect that Harris County will see higher turnout in November than the 60 to 62 percent that’s typical in presidential election years.
“If I were a betting man I’d put money on 65 for sure, and I might take some odds on 70,” Hollins said.
Voter registration, similarly, has continued apace, despite the challenges presented by the pandemic. Since March, nearly 149,000 voters have been added to the rolls in Texas, bringing the statewide electorate to a record 16.4 million people.
I haven’t seen an official number for Harris County voter registration yet – we’ll know it for sure when we get election night returns – but I’ve heard 2.4 million at this time. At 62% turnout, about what we usually get in Presidential years, that’s a bit short of 1.5 million votes in Harris County. 65% is 1.56 million, 70% is approaching 1.7 million. That’s going to be more Democratic votes than it is Republican votes. It’s just a matter of how many.
Still, Republicans should be nervous about surging July turnout given that Democrats don’t have a marquee name on the ballot like former congressman Beto O’Rourke, who excited Democrats nationwide in his near-miss U.S. Senate bid in 2018.
“I don’t know that here in Texas we have one specific candidate or officeholder who is the standard-bearer for the party,” Begala acknowledged.
Perhaps voters are simply fed up with the incumbents, who happen to be Republicans, for the most part.
“I think it’s that when voters look around right now, when Texans look around right now, they see a pandemic, they see horrific racial injustice, they see record unemployment,” said Amanda Sherman, the communications director for Hegar. “Voting is a way for them to do something about it.”
I’m not sure that the high runoff turnout matters that much for November, but it does show that even in the pandemic Dems are turning out. There’s evidence from around the country that relentless Republican efforts to make voting harder have resulted in hardier and more persistent voters, especially Black voters. Maybe we’re seeing some of that here.
What you’re really here for is the final EV report from Harris County. Here it is:
Election Mail Early Total Mail %
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D primary 22,785 116,748 139,533 16.3%
R primary 22,801 82,108 104,909 21.7%
D runoff 45,176 65,979 111,105 40.7%
R runoff 25,425 17,783 43,208 58.8%
The Friday runoff EV file is here, and the final EV turnout report from March is here. 18,526 Democrats showed up to vote in person on Friday. That’s more than the entire early voting in person population for the Republicans, who didn’t have a statewide race but did have a couple of countywide races. And as noted, Republicans were far more reliant on a rate basis on mail ballots than Dems were, though Dems returned far more mail ballots. You can draw your own conclusions.
I promised you more data about the early voting population, at least through Wednesday. I’m a man of my word, so here’s what I found when I examined age and gender data for the primary runoff.
Among the mail voters, there were 16 people born prior to 1920, with the oldest being born in 1915. Another 10 were born in 1920. In other words, 26 people who are at least 100 years old had voted as of Wednesday.
The daily voter rosters do not include year of birth or gender, only the full March roster does. As such, I only have that data for the people who had also voted in March. Of 41,739 total mail voters who had voted in March, 40,195 are 65 or older. The remaining 1,544 are under 65.
23,373 of the 65 or older mail voters are female, including 15 of the 16 pre-1920-birth voters and eight of the ten born in 1920. 58.1% of mail voters are listed as female. 16,230 are listed as male, for 40.4% of over-65 mail voters.
868 of the 1,544 under-65 mail voters are female (56.2%), 641 are male (41.5%).
(For some voters, the value in the Gender field is null, which may be a data glitch, or may be a stated preference of the voter. Because the number is so small, and because as far as I know there is no other option for this field that is allowed by state law, I suspect this is just a data error.)
I did not extend this to the in person early voters – I promise, I’ll circle back when I get the full voter roster for the runoff. But Keir Murray posted some facts about the voting data through Thursday:
Let’s look at early voting in Harris County for the July 14th runoff, starting with Dems. 90K+ ballots have been cast so far, representing about 17% of the state’s total. For perspective, there were 57K total runoff votes in 2018 and 30K in 2016. #txlege
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— Keir Murray (@houtopia) 1:39 PM – 10 July 2020
Click over to see the rest of the thread. Keir also notes that the statewide mix of Dem primary runoff voters is more Black than Latino, which is the reverse of what it was in March. Maybe that will boost Royce West in the Senate race, we’ll see. I will have election night returns for you on Wednesday. If you haven’t voted yet, Tuesday is your last chance.
