Democratic early voting in Texas’ primary election has surged compared to both the last midterm cycle and the most recent presidential primary.
According to data from the Texas Secretary of State, nearly 483,000 Democrats had cast early ballots in person or by mail as of Sunday. That's an increase of more than 211,000 compared with the same point in the 2022 primary.
Turnout was also significantly higher than during the 2024 presidential primary. At this stage of early voting that year, 257,680 Democrats had cast ballots in Texas.
Republican early turnout, by comparison, stands at about 446,000 ballots so far — roughly 6,000 more than at this point in 2022 but slightly lower than the more than 522,000 Republicans who had voted by this stage in the 2024 presidential primary.
Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, told KERA News the spike in Democratic participation may reflect heightened energy in the party this year.
He said growing criticism of the Trump administration’s policies, combined with a high-profile U.S. Senate Democratic primary between U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas and Texas Rep. James Talarico of Austin, has helped drive engagement.
"Democrats have generally not perceived that they had that great of a chance to win statewide office, and they haven't had especially interesting primaries," Wilson said. "But those two things aren't true this time."
As of Sunday, nearly 483,000 voters had cast early ballots in person or by mail in the Democratic primary, while about 446,000 voters had participated in the Republican primary. That amounts to roughly 5% of the state’s 18,657,918 registered voters.
And overall participation is also running ahead compared with this time in the 2022 primary, when just over 4% of registered voters had cast early ballots.
Texas voters are choosing nominees for U.S. Senate and statewide offices including governor, lieutenant governor, comptroller and attorney general. Four seats on the Texas Supreme Court are also up for election, along with all 150 seats in the Texas House and 16 seats in the Texas Senate.
Early voting began Feb. 17 and runs through Feb. 27. Election Day is March 3.
KERA’s Dylan Duke contributed to this story.
