(THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – Nearly one in four registered voters in Texas cast a ballot in Tuesday\u2019s primaries, a high-water mark for midterm elections in the state\u2019s recent history, driven by electrifying momentum surrounding both parties\u2019 races for U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n
In all, nearly 4.5 million Texans voted across the Democratic and Republican primaries, according to unofficial numbers on the Texas Secretary of State\u2019s Office as of 8 a.m. Thursday. The turnout was divided between 2.3 million ballots in the Democratic primary and nearly 2.2 million on the Republican side; it was the first time with higher Democratic turnout since 2020, when voters flocked to weigh in on the party\u2019s open presidential primary.<\/p>\n
The energy across both parties this year was clear from the start. In the first seven days of early voting, the state recorded more ballots cast than in any recent midterm or presidential election year. There are roughly 18.7 million registered voters in the state.<\/p>\n
The higher turnout on the Democratic side, despite the draw of spicy contests at the top for both parties\u2019 ballots, has helped fuel Democrats\u2019 hopes that backlash to President Donald Trump\u2019s policies could propel them to their first statewide win since 1994.<\/p>\n
Should that become reality, the political trophy could be claimed by their nominee for Senate, state Rep. James Talarico, who Democratic voters selected over U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas. Meanwhile Republicans sent two party stalwarts, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton, into a runoff to decide who will face Talarico in November.<\/p>\n
Democratic turnout was significantly higher than in 2018, the last midterm when Trump was in office. That March, about 7 percent of registered voters cast a ballot in the Democratic primary, compared to 12 percent in this year\u2019s intraparty contest. That November, then-Congressman Beto O\u2019Rourke of El Paso came within 2.6 points of unseating GOP U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.<\/p>\n
A geographic analysis of turnout suggests there was political energy propelling voters to the polls virtually throughout the state. Nearly two-thirds of Texas counties \u2014 158 of 254 \u2014 saw higher percentages of their registered voting population participate in either the Democratic and Republican primary this year compared to the 2022 primary, the most recent midterm.<\/p>\n
About 17% and 18% of registered voters participated in the 2018 and 2022 primaries, respectively, compared to about 24% this year, according to the latest unofficial figures Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
The widespread propulsion was laid bare in the Tribune\u2019s geographic analysis, which found the highest turnout came in the state\u2019s solidly red counties \u2014 from bigger population centers like Lubbock County to the many sparsely populated rural counties \u2014 along with the fast-growing suburban counties such as Tarrant and Fort Bend.<\/p>\n
Both saw turnout north of 25%, followed closely by the nearly 24% clip in the biggest liberal counties. Turnout was lowest \u2014 16% \u2014 in the border counties, though all four geographic buckets saw an increase in turnout rate from four years ago.<\/p>\n
To be sure, there were far fewer competitive races in 2022 \u2014 when the gubernatorial contest was the top statewide draw \u2014 compared to barnburner Senate and down-ballot races during this year\u2019s primaries. Voters on Tuesday also picked nominees for an unusually large number competitive statewide offices.<\/p>\n
Learn about The Texas Tribune\u2019s policies, including our partnership with The Trust Project to increase transparency in news. To see this article in its original form, go to The Texas Tribune<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – Nearly one in four registered voters in Texas cast a ballot in Tuesday\u2019s primaries, a high-water mark for midterm elections in the state\u2019s recent history, driven by electrifying momentum surrounding both parties\u2019 races for U.S. Senate. In all, nearly 4.5 million Texans voted across the Democratic and Republican primaries, according to … Continue reading Texas primary voters smash recent midterm turnout records<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2851],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1485834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news-archive"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-07 07:30:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1485834"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1486370,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485834\/revisions\/1486370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1485834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1485834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1485834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}