(6/20)
One of the most dramatic increases occurred in Starr Co., where 15 people voted in the 2018 Republican primary. Nearly 1,800 people voted in this year’s primary.
The Democratic Party saw a dramatic drop there as turnout fell to around 3,400 voters from 6,500 in 2018.
Conversation
(7/20)
Democratic votes exceeded 1 million statewide for the 4th straight primary election. More people voted in this year’s primary than in any Democratic mid-term primary since 1990, but still less than in each Democratic primary between 1946 and 1992.
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The total of 1.06M Democratic voters just squeaked past 2018 (1.04M).
This means that 96% of the combined increase in primary turnout was Republican voters. That’s 24 out of every 25.
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(9/20)
The number of Democratic voters declined from 2018 in half of the state’s 254 counties. The biggest % drop was King Co., where both 2018 voters did not return to the polls (as Democrats). The biggest drop in total vote was in El Paso Co., where 10K fewer people voted.
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(10/20)
The number of Democratic voters increased in 121 counties, which were spread out more randomly across the state than the Republican gains. The biggest gains were in Fort Bend (10K) & Cameron (6K) Cos. The biggest % gain was in Reagan Co., which went to 20 voters from 6.
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(11/20)
So far, we’ve talked about turnout in terms of the number of voters. Now let’s look at it as the percentage of registered voters.
There are nearly 17.2 million registered voters (RVs) in Texas, of which just shy of 3 million voted in either primary.
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(12/20)
Combined primary turnout statewide was 17.4% of registered voters, a whisker above 2018 (17.0%) and the highest combined turnout for a mid-term primary since 1994 (17.6%).
It was the 8th straight mid-term primary with combined turnout below 20%.
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Republican turnout was 11.3% of RVs, the 5th highest for a Republican primary in state history and the 2nd highest for a mid-term primary (11.4% in 2010).
Republican turnout has exceeded 10% in seven of the last eight primary elections.
Yes, 10% is the yardstick here.
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(14/20)
Democratic turnout was 6.15% of RVs, a bit behind 2018 (6.8%) but an improvement over 2006 (4.0%), 2010 (5.2%) and 2014 (4.0%).
Turnout has been below 10% for 11 of the last 14 Democratic primaries.
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(15/20)
So far, we’ve talked about the Texans who turned out to vote and the records they set. The Texans who did not turn out to vote also set a record.
Nearly 14.2 million registered voters did not vote in either party's primary election.
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(16/20)
Non-turnout broke the previous record, set in 2018, by nearly 1.5 million non-voters.
In nine of the last 11 primaries, at least 10 million registered voters did not vote, including the last 6 mid-term primaries.
(It would be 7, but only 9.9 million passed in 1998.)
Replying to
(17/20)
And that’s just registered voters who didn’t vote. Another roughly 2 million Texans are eligible to vote but aren’t registered.
That means roughly 16 million or so Texans could have voted but didn’t.
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(18/20)
Even more voters skip runoffs. The last time more people voted in the runoff than in the primary was 1954.
Combined runoff turnout has exceeded 1 million Texans just 5 runoffs, only twice since 1994 (2012, 2020). Turnout has exceeded 10% just once since 1994 (2012).
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(19/20)
But there are statewide runoffs for both parties this year, so breaking 1 million voters is likely.
That would still leave around 18 million voting-eligible Texans on the sideline.
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(20/20)
There are over 1.9 million more registered voters in Texas now than there were for the 2018 primary election, but the number of voters increased by only 400K.
Thus, we have record numbers of voters, record turnout % and record numbers of non-voters all at once.
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(21/20)
Keep in mind that these are all unofficial numbers and subject to revision, up or down.
I've already been advised that the Starr Co. numbers cited above have been revised since I pulled them.
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Revised number is 1,444 Republican voters. Still, a very dramatic increase from 15 in 2018
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(22/20)
That's the risk with doing analyses like this BEFORE the election canvass makes the results official.
And the risk of rolling it on Twitter, where you can't edit a number in the middle of a thread.
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