Were Texas Democrats defeated before they started?

AUSTIN – The Austin American-Statesman reports that Texas Democrats were already 1 million voters behind Republicans before the first ballot was cast in the 2024 election cycle, and for all the high hopes of finally catching lightning in a bottle Nov. 5, after a three-decade drought in statewide elections, those dreams had probably been dashed eight months earlier. That’s the analysis of political consultant and data diver Derek Ryan, who plowed through demographics and past voting habits of 99.8% of the 11,340,202 Texans who cast a ballot for president. “The November election was probably decided back in March,” Ryan said in an email blast to people who sign up for his data and insight. “In March, 2.3 million people voted in the Republican Primary while only 1 million people voted in the Democratic Primary.” Because just about everyone who votes in the primaries comes back to the polls in the fall, Texas Republicans began the race with one heck of a head start.

“That means Democrats had to contact 1 million voters (AND convince them to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot) simply to catch up to where the Republicans already were,” Ryan said. The analysis came after everyone knew that Texas Democrats had yet another lousy election cycle with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump smothering Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris by 14 percentage points and incumbent GOP U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz dusting Democratic U.S. Rep Colin Allred by nearly 9 points. But the numbers behind the numbers help fill in the gaps of why and how. The big picture first: In pure raw numbers, more Texans voted in the 2024 general election than in any election that came before. But because the state is growing so fast, turnout as a percentage of the universe of potential Texas voters nose-dived. Four years ago, Ryan found, turnout was 66.4% and Democrats had a pretty decent year, at least by Texas standards, with Trump beating Joe Biden by just 5.5 percentage points in the state. The 2020 turnout buried that of 2016, when just under 59% of registered voters cast ballots and Trump’s victory margin was 9 points. The 60.6% turnout this cycle was just a tad better than 2016 but well short of what it was four years ago, suggesting that Republican voters were simply more motivated than their Democratic rivals.