Derek Ryan is back with his analysis of the three-day EV numbers.
Through the first three days of early voting (Tues – Thurs), I have been able to identify 303,095 people who have voted in the Republican Primary (1.6% turnout) and 316,869 who have voted in the Democratic Primary (1.7%). My numbers may differ slightly from what is being posted on the Secretary of State’s website. In some instances, I have gone straight to the county to get their lists of early voters before they have had a chance to have the data posted on the SOS website.
Yes, you read that right. More people have voted in the Democratic Primary than in the Republican Primary…at least for the time being. We will see if that trend continues. There are some possible reasons why that is happening (some technical and some political):
(1) Where it stands right now, I have at least some data from the majority of Texas’ counties, but that doesn’t always mean each county has submitted their full list of who voted. However, I do have most of the major counties accounted for. What is likely missing is some from the mid- to low- range on population totals. A bunch of the counties I am possibly missing information from are likely to see higher numbers of people voting in the Republican Primary than in the Democratic Primary.
(2) Republican Primary voters appear to be shifting from voting early to voting on Election Day. Some of the people who may have voted during the first few days of early voting in previous election cycles are now opting to wait to vote, possibly even waiting until Election Day.
(3) The national political scene has energized Democrats, probably more so this year than in previous midterm elections. This isn’t necessarily a new phenomenon. As a reminder, nationally the party holding the White House has lost congressional seats in 18 out of the last 20 midterm elections (more on this below).Turnout Comparison
-On the Republican side, 1.6% of all registered voters have voted in the primary. This is actually below where we were after three days of early voting in the previous three Republican Primaries (2020-2024).
-On the Democratic side, 1.7% of all registered voters have voted in the primary. That outpaces the turnout percentage seen after three days in 2020-2024. In 2020, the turnout after three days was 1.3. You will recall that in 2020, the Democrats had a big primary voting year because Texas was still in play in the presidential primary race.
Energy Levels
As mentioned above, there appears to be a little more energy amongst Democrats than Republicans. One data point that points to this is the turnout rate amongst the most consistent of primary voters. Individuals who voted in all four of the last four Democratic Primaries (4Ds) have turned out at a rate of 22%. In other words, out of the 342,000 4Rs, 22% have already voted. On the Republican side, people who have voted in all four of the last four Republican Primaries (4Rs) have only turned out at a rate of 17%.
In addition to the reasons I listed earlier, there are also potentially other reasons the most consistent Republicans haven’t voted yet. For example, it is possible that some previous Republican Primary voters are still making up their minds on who to vote for in a multitude of competitive races up and down the ballot.
While the turnout rate of 4Ds is higher than that of 4Rs, it is worth noting that more raw votes have been cast by 4Rs than 4Ds (~107,000 to ~75,000).
Age of Voters
Both parties continue to see little interest in participating in the primary process from younger voters.
Currently, the average age of a Republican Primary voter is 66 and the average age of a Democratic Primary voter is slightly lower, 58 (still pretty high).
Only 5,493 people under the age of 30 have voted in the Republican Primary. They account for 2% of all votes cast. On the Democratic side, 24,059 have voted early and make up 8% of all votes cast.
For comparison, registered voters aged 18 to 29 make up 21% of all registered voters in the state.
Crossover Voting and New Party Voters
A couple of months ago, I mentioned that we would likely see less crossover voting than in previous primaries due to the fact that both parties have contested high-profile races and voters are more likely to vote in their own party’s primary because of those races.
Currently, about 2% of votes cast in the Republican Primary have come from people who had most recently voted in a Democratic Primary before this year. In 2024, their share was 4%.
Approximately 6% of votes cast in the Democratic Primary have come from people who had most recently voted in a Republican Primary prior to 2026. In the 2024 Democratic Primary, their share was only around 4%.
Voters without any previous primary history (R or D) currently make up around 23% of all votes cast in the Democratic Primary while the same group only makes up around 10% in the Republican Primary.
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Reports
Below are links for a statewide report for each party’s primary. I’m still working on some formatting issues, mainly on pages two and four, so my apologies for that. Pages one through five will give you a glimpse of where things are right now with some data one where things were at the same point in previous primaries. Pages seven though nine will show you the entire picture of who voted in the 2020-2024 primary elections. Those pages include all votes cast, including those on election day. And lastly, the final two pages provide some definitions on terms used throughout the reports.
For the Republican Primary report, click here.
For the Democratic Primary report, click here.
I strongly recommend looking at the reports for all of the details and comparisons to the three previous primaries. I’m only doing comparisons to 2018 and 2022, the two most recent non-Presidential year primaries, but that’s a stylistic choice as much as anything. One thing I gleaned from the full reports is that while the percentage of people with only Democratic primary voting history who have voted in Democratic primaries varies a lot – it was barely 50% in 2020, 73 to 74% in 2022 and 2024, and is under 68% so far this year – that share has been a lot more consistent on the Republican side – basically, within a point either way of 74% in the last three primaries, but over 83% so far this year. One can to a certain extent view this as a proxy for outreach to new or new-to-them voters, and on that score the Dem numbers look more promising. But a lot of those no-past-primary-history folks are people with a history of voting in general elections, so without an even deeper dive it’s hard to say how many of these people are truly “new”, at least to voting Democratic, and not just new to voting in March.
Note also Ryan’s comments about the when-to-vote tendencies. Looking at the full reports, both parties consistently have a big surge on the last day of early voting, with the bigger surges on the Republican side. I haven’t looked at the day-of-election trends in Harris County, but for a variety of reasons Republicans have tended to prefer voting on Election Day more lately, so that’s something else to consider. “Winning” in early voting does not necessarily mean winning in the end.
You can and should subscribe to Ryan’s irregular but always useful reports here – he does this for the November elections as well.
My pal Erik Vidor is doing similar work on the Harris County data, which he has shared with me. A brief summary of the most interesting-to-me bits after three days:
Age:
18-24 = 3.08%
25-34 = 8.85%
35-49 = 18.78%
50-59 = 15.55%
60-64 – 11.12%
65+ = 42.62%
42.56% Male, 57.35% Female
African-American = 35.02%
White = 39.03%
Hispanic = 20.30%
Asian = 3.1%
Other = 0.69%
Dem primary history:
0 of 3 = 24.64%
1 of 3 = 18.93%
2 of 3 = 18.58%
3 of 3 = 37.85%
All of these numbers are subject to change, and I will update you on them as we go.
Finally, from Lone Star Left:
VoteHub has an awesome tool you can check out here that publishes updates on voter turnout on both sides of the aisle. And as of writing this, the turnout so far is:
- Democrats: 277,706 (205% of this same time day in 2022)
- Republicans: 251,766 (113% of this same time day in 2022)
So, while Republican turnout seems to be up a mere smidge from 2022, Democratic turnout is double. I would say that absolutely shows enthusiasm on the Democratic side.
The last time Democrats outpaced Republicans in a primary was in 2008, when they voted for the presidential ticket. 2.8 million Democrats voted, opposed to 1.3 million Republicans.
And maybe that’s an important lesson for us, not to get too worked up about these early voting numbers yet. Because in the 2008 general election in Texas, McCain beat Obama 55% to 43%. However, if we’re going to be in a year when Texas flips, of course, it’s going to start with outpacing the Republicans in the primaries.
2008 was a presidential year. The last time Democrats outpaced Republicans in a primary election during a midterm year was 2002. It was also the year John Cornyn was elected to the Senate.
The moral of the story is that even if we outpace Republicans by double or triple, we still have to bust our humps to do everything we can to turnout the vote in November.
They have a closer look at Tarrant and Bexar counties and some further insights as well, so check it out. I love numbers, so this is always a favorite time for me. Have you voted yet? What are you seeing out there?