Early primary voting is now over in Texas. It shows that Democrats seem to be energized to vote in this off-year election. In 2014, Republicans outvoted Democrats by 138,693 in the primaries. That was flipped in 2018 -- with Democrats outvoting Republicans by 44,916.
Both parties increased their votes in the primary early voting. The Republican increase was a respectable 15.02%. The Democrats increased their primary voting by a whopping 105.12%. I think it's safe to say that Democrats are enthusiastic about voting this year -- much more than in past off-year elections.
The numbers in the charts above represent only the 15 largest counties in the state, because those are the only early voting totals released by the office of the Texas Secretary of State. But those 15 counties contain about two-thirds of the state's registered voters. We will have to wait until the March 6th election to see how the numbers shape up for the state as a whole.
I suspect when we see the final primary voting numbers for the state, it will be very close between the two parties. That means the elections statewide will depend on which party can convince Independents to vote for them. Whatever happens, this is shaping up to be a very interesting election season in Texas -- and the November results could be closer than they've been in over two decades.
