One more time from Derek Ryan.
Turnout Comparison
Based on the data I have, here is where things stand through Wednesday:
-856,191 people have voted in the Republican Primary (4.6% of all registered voters). The Secretary of State is reporting 801,748 (more on the difference in a moment).
-988,406 people have voted in the Democratic Primary (5.3% of all registered voters). The SOS is reporting 883,903.There are other outlets who report higher vote totals than me and some who have lower totals. Why is that? For starters, everyone is likely pulling the data at different times of the day and from different sources. For example, I’m pulling the data that is available from the Secretary of State’s website in the early afternoon. I also get some data directly from the county, mainly in the larger counties and from counties where I am involved in a race. In some cases, I have been able to include data which hasn’t posted to the SOS website. And then there are others who are pulling data directly from the top 40-50 counties. God bless those people…so many different file formats (Excel, csv, and yes, even pdf) and so many different formats within the files. That would drive me nuts.
Why am I going into all of that? Because there are still some counties that are unaccounted for in my reports. The actual totals are likely to be slightly higher than those listed here.
Projections
When looking at the last three primaries (2020, 2022, and 2024), nine days of early voting historically accounts for 35% of all votes cast. If the same is true this year, we could see some record breaking turnout numbers for both parties. Based on the total votes cast thus far and assuming those totals account for 35% of the final total, that would put us on pace for:
-2,446,260 votes cast in the Republican Primary.
-2,824,017 votes cast in the Democratic Primary.I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but I went back to 1980 and it appears the highest number of raw votes cast in the primary was in the 2008 Democratic Primary when 2,874,986 people voted. The 2016 Republican Primary is in second place with 2,836,488 votes cast. It’s possible we could see a new high this year. I’m sure you have noticed, those two elections were races were in presidential years and not midterms. As a reminder, in both 2008 and 2016, turnout was high because Texas was still in play in the presidential race. In short, we are in uncharted territory with turnout this high in a midterm election.
Voters by Age
I haven’t mentioned the age breakdown lately. The average age of a voter in the Republican Primary is 64 years old and the average age of a Democratic Primary vote is a little lower at 55. For comparison, the average age of a voter in the November 2024 election was 50.
Voters under the age of 30 only account for 2% of all votes cast in the Republican Primary and 10% in the Democratic Primary. On the other end of the spectrum, 24% of Democratic Primary voters and 41% of Republican Primary voters are age 70 and up.
The enthusiasm level appears to be very low amongst younger registered voters. Only 4% of eligible registered voters under 30 have voted this year. For comparison, 20% of registered voters age 70 and up have already voted.
Last Days of Early Voting
This week has seen around 100k people vote in each party’s primary each day:
Republican Primary
Monday: 90,864 votes cast
Tuesday: 106,538 votes cast
Wednesday: 105,258 votes castDemocratic Primary
Monday: 103,704 votes cast
Tuesday: 116,853 votes cast
Wednesday: 121,578 votes castThe last Thursday of early voting is usually the second busiest day of early voting. Around 130k people likely voted today in each party’s primary. And if you like to vote early to avoid the lines and you haven’t voted yet, I have bad news for you. We could possibly see 200k+ people vote in each party’s primary on Friday.
So the expectation is that over 1.3 million votes will be cast in the Democratic primary by the end of the day today, which is to say the end of early voting. Not too shabby. As a reminder, you can get full reports on the data for both primaries from the link above:
For the Statewide Republican Primary report, click here and by county here.
For the Statewide Democratic Primary report, click here and by county here.
I was asked on the Facebook page yesterday about crossover voting and whether that may have an effect in the Senate primary. Per the data above, as of Wednesday 2.8% of Democratic primary voters had only voted in Republican primaries before. Another 3.2% had a mixed primary history with their last such vote being Republican. There are always some crossover votes in primaries, for a variety of reasons. I would not worry about this.
Meanwhile, here’s a little story about Republican panic.
With just days until Texas’ primary, Republicans in Washington are growing more alarmed that their increasingly vicious intraparty contest could cost them a must-win Senate seat.
Sen. John Cornyn appears to be headed to an expensive and nasty 10-week runoff against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, with a strong chance that Paxton wins the nomination even after national Republicans spent months airing his dirty laundry all over the Texas airwaves in an effort to boost Cornyn.
“Honestly, if you look at the polling in a general election setting, I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that the seat [flips], depending on who the Democrats nominate,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, when asked about the possibility that Republicans could lose the race if Cornyn, who he endorsed, is not the party’s nominee.
If Cornyn loses the primary, Senate Republicans worry they could be forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars that could otherwise go toward key battleground races in expensive states like North Carolina, Georgia or Michigan, complicating their path toward holding Senate control.
Republicans have already spent nearly $100 million on TV advertising in the primary, which also includes Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), according to data from AdImpact. And Cornyn launched new ads this week, with support from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, that hammer Paxton in ways that could hurt him in the general election too: highlighting his messy ongoing divorce and accusations of corruption and calling Paxton a “wife-cheater and fraud.”
But those attacks haven’t stopped Paxton, a MAGA hero more aligned with the party base who has been bolstered by positive polling and a wave of grassroots enthusiasm.
“All signs indicate that Paxton probably finishes first,” a Washington GOP operative close to Cornyn who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss the race told POLITICO. “We’re just hoping the gap is close enough the narrative isn’t ‘Paxton kicked the crap out of Cornyn.’”
Ah, the sweet smell of desperation. Nothing quite like it.
Once again, I’m just comparing the daily numbers now to the final ones from 2018 and 2022. Here are the final daily EV reports for the 2022 and 2018 primaries. And here are the final turnout numbers:
2022 turnout:
2018 turnout:
Here’s the Day Ten EV report for this year, and the comparisons:
Year Mail Early Total
=====================================
2018 Dem 16,532 52,344 68,876
2018 GOP 18,848 47,298 66,146
2022 Dem 13,713 82,342 96,055
2022 GOP 9,684 96,439 106,123
2026 Dem 7,761 160,956 168,717
2026 GOP 4,049 96,974 101,023
As you can see, with one day of early voting to go, Democrats have exceeded the overall turnout level from 2018 and 2022. I expect Dems to top 200K today, and then it’s a question of how much is still in the tank for Tuesday. As we’ve discussed multiple times, the trend is towards more early voting, and I’d bet on at least 60% of the vote total being cast by tomorrow. For Dems, anyway, Republicans may be different. I still need to check recent primaries to see what the rates of early versus E-Day voting are for each.
As of Tuesday’s results, slightly over 60% of Dem primary voters in Harris County were female. Just over 15% were under 35, and just under 51% had voted in at most one of the last three primaries. We’ll see what today brings. Have you voted yet?