From an Austin consultant RE Texas:
2022 General Election - Early Voting Report
My apologies for the delay in getting today's report out. Data from some counties was not available for download this morning, so I had to wait until this afternoon to begin compiling information for the entire state. Several of these were large counties so I wanted to wait in order to include them in the report.
We are at 3,393,617 votes cast through yesterday. That means 426,309 people voted yesterday. Every weekday of voting last week saw more votes cast than yesterday. This trend may continue for a day or two more before picking up on Thursday and Friday as early voting comes to an end.
2022 vs. 2018 Turnout
In the top 30 counties, where I am able to compare numbers by day to those cast in 2018, 2,681,123 votes have been cast. At this point in 2018, 3,347,523 votes were cast. That means 666,400 fewer votes this year compared to 2018. After day one, the deficit was only 210,988 votes. The deficit has grown each day since.
(Image see below)
After one day of the margin decreasing between Republican Primary voters and Democratic Primary voters, the margin began increasing again. Currently, 440,895 more Republican Primary voters have voted than Democratic Primary voters. Again, assuming that a large percentage of each party's primary voters vote for their respective party's nominees, Republicans would only need to win 24% of the voters with no primary history in order to get to 50% + 1.
The breakdown of early voters by their previous election history is as follows:
Republican Primary voters 44%
Democratic Primary voters 31%
Voters with no primary election history 25%
Local Data
There are a few counties I am watching, not just because of the story in the county, but also for what the results mean for the state as a whole. For now, here are three counties I am watching:
Tarrant County (Fort Worth) In 2018, Senator Ted Cruz lost Tarrant County by 0.7%. This was a county which had been reliably red for decades. Currently, Republican Primary voters make up 43% of all early votes cast in the county. In 2018, they only made up 34%. If Republicans can increase their margin here, it helps to offset some of the other large counties.
Harris County (Houston) In 2018, Democrats swept countywide offices. Included in the sweep was Republican County Judge Ed Emmett (County Judge...not actually a judicial judge. More like the county's mayor, but that's a story for another day.). Emmett was an extremely popular Republican who was defeated by Democrat Lina Hidalgo. This year, Hidalgo is running for re-election and faces Republican Alex Mealer. Currently, Republican Primary voters make up 36% of all early votes. In 2018, they only made up 25%. Not only is there the possibility of defeating Hidalgo, but if Republicans can win Harris County, the odds of Democrats winning Texas shrink drastically. 14.5% of all of Texas' registered voters live in Harris County.
Travis County (Austin) Travis County is solidly blue, so why am I watching it? Of the five largest counties in the state, this is the county with the largest margin between Republican and Democratic voters and it's a place where a statewide Democratic candidate can make up a lot of ground. In 2018, Beto O'Rourke won with 74% of the vote. There was a 240,494 vote difference between the number of votes O'Rourke received versus those Cruz received. Currently, only 188,729 people have voted in the county.
Tomorrow, I will highlight a few other counties.
The Reports
For the full statewide report, please click here.
For the breakdown by county, please click here.
(If you notice a county where the numbers have not changed since a previous report, this is likely because I downloaded the data I needed before the county had posted their updated list.)
Last Notes
Voters with an effective date of registration after the 2020 General Election* currently make up 9.2% of all votes cast. Interestingly enough, of the 312,274 people in this category, Republican Primary voters have a 28,617 vote advantage over Democratic Primary voters.
*This is the category that includes people who have turned 18 since the 2020 General Election and registered to vote for the first time, people who have moved to Texas, people who have lived here and weren't on the registration rolls in 2020 but have registered since, as well as individuals who have moved from one county to another and registered in their new county of residence.