The only question now is, purple or blue?
Texas’ early vote has been amazing to watch, with almost 7.5 million votes cast by Sunday. Monday’s vote gives us an idea of what to expect for the rest of this week. Were we going to see significant decline, with the bulk of early voters having already cast their vote? Were we going to see an extension of the usual Early Vote ‘U’, with a slight drop or steady-on from last week’s numbers of 330k-400k a day? Because the latter would give me hope that we’ll see the usual massive jump in early votes this Thurs and Fri.
Well, we now have an answer, with 7.8M cast by the end of Monday.
TABLE INFORMATION:
- ‘Prev Total’ is the cumulative early vote as of end of Sunday, 25 Oct.
- ‘RV%’ is a better way to frame the percentage of voters. This is what percent of registered voters in the county have voted.
- The ‘2016 total’ information you see is total votes cast for President from that county.
- The ‘2018 total’ information you see is total votes cast for Senator in that county.
This means they are NOT going to be exact numbers, because there are always undervotes for any given race. However, the top-line races are much less likely to be undervoted, so it’s the best numbers I could grab to use as a comparison. It’s going to give us a really good look at things, though.
County |
prev total |
26 oct |
county total |
rv% |
2016 total |
2018 total |
harris |
1.08M |
58,602 |
1,151,399 |
46.42 |
1.312M |
1.208M |
dallas |
605k |
29,840* |
636,840 |
45.54 |
759k |
728k |
tarrant |
535k |
34,660 |
570,113 |
47.02 |
669k |
628k |
bexar |
511k |
29,508* |
543,186 |
45.67 |
590k |
550k |
travis |
424k |
21,171 |
445,618 |
52.14 |
469k |
484k |
collin |
356k |
15,201* |
372,403 |
57.41 |
361k |
356k |
denton |
300k |
14,082 |
314,059 |
55.58 |
299k |
296k |
el paso |
168k |
8,997* |
177,886 |
36.42 |
214k |
204k |
ft bend |
245k |
13,577* |
262,290 |
54.38 |
262k |
255k |
hidalgo |
141k |
6,902* |
148,005 |
37.82 |
173k |
152k |
williamson |
203k |
10,315 |
213,289 |
56.62 |
203k |
208k |
montgomery |
177k |
12,123 |
189,057 |
51.09 |
205k |
190k |
Galveston** |
111k |
4,971* |
116,275 |
50.89 |
123k |
114k |
brazoria |
111k |
5,264 |
116,246 |
51.84 |
121k |
112k |
cameron |
73k |
3,593* |
76,600 |
34.99 |
92k |
78k |
totals |
5.04M |
268,806 |
5.33M |
|
5.85M |
5.56M |
*These states I only had in-person numbers for the daily number, but the totals include mail-ins.
**Update: somehow when building these charts at the beginning of all of this, I missed Galveston. That’s been corrected now, and these are the top counties across the state, based on current SoS information.
Williamson County: They cast 203,081 votes for President in 2016. In 2020, there have been 203,181 votes cast as of Sun, 25 Oct.
Caveats and other data tidbits:
- These counties, and Texas as a whole, have grown. We’ve got 17M registered voters in 2020, compared to 15.8M in 2018 and 15.1M in 2016. However, once again...I don’t see 1.8M voters suddenly deciding to register since 2016 in order to vote for an incumbent President. These voters are likely to lean HEAVILY toward Team Blue, if we can get them to turn out.
- Total voter turnout in 2016 was 59% of registered voters, and in 2018 was 53% of registered voters.
- Historically, early voting has been 60% of total voting. We have no idea what the percentage is likely to be this year, with an extra week of early voting and the pandemic. Therefore, all numbers are now being compared against the TOTAL VOTES from those years.
- Most of the ‘26 Oct’ early vote numbers are just in-person. The counties are reporting the in-person and mail-in votes separately in many cases. However, the ‘to date total’ numbers are both, since the TX SoS collates all of it into their totals. This is a limitation due to my math skills and the time it takes to collect everything, every day.
- Total vote numbers for President in 2016 was roughly 9M, and for Senate in 2018 was roughly 8.4M. That makes these counties at 65% of the 2016 vote and 66% in 2018. Based on that, we can reasonably expect the vote for these counties to be at the 65-70% vote total of the state. As of 25 Oct, they were 68% of the total vote, which is in line and on the higher end — and very promising given how much these 15 wind up giving us a blue margin.
County Information by City/Region
Austin: Travis County. Williamson County (N suburbs)
Corpus Christi: Nueces County.
Dallas/Fort Worth: Dallas/Tarrant Counties. Collin (NE suburbs) and Denton (N suburbs)
El Paso: El Paso County.
Houston: Harris County. Brazoria (S suburbs), Ft Bend (SW suburbs) and Montgomery (N suburbs)
San Antonio: Bexar County.
Galveston: Galveston County.
South Tip: Cameron, Hidalgo County.
ANALYSIS
My ‘target’ number is still anything above 11M. I think with 11M votes, we’ve got the Presidency. Other analyses are saying anything between 11M and 12M, so where in that you choose to land is going to be based on your assumptions. We know Cornyn didn’t model anything above the 10.5-11M rate, and that the GOP are flat out terrified of people voting.
We now have multiple counties reporting numbers above 2018 numbers. We have a few counties, mostly collar counties, reporting above 2016 total numbers. Mind you, this is with four days of early voting and election day itself to go.
Williamson County, I think, gives us an idea of what we might be able to expect from other suburban collar counties. It’s the one just north of Austin, containing Round Rock, and had always been reliably red...up until 2018, when Beto O’Rourke managed to get 3% more of the vote from Williamson County than Ted Cruz. My take? There aren’t going to be Sudden Trump Voters in the collar counties. Those are suburban, middle-to-upper class, and tend to be reliable, regular voters. If we see increased turnout in these counties, it’s going to be people voting against Trump, not suddenly deciding to vote in his favor (tweet to support is below).
We’re still seeing slight decreases from previous days, which is in-line with the usual trend, rather than a complete drop-off. That means there is a high likelihood of the increased numbers/turnout on Thurs and Fri. I am expecting to surpass 2016’s total vote on Wed.
We’re now at 7.8M votes across Texas, and that’s as of the end of yesterday’s voting. I’m expecting we’ll hit 9.5M to 10M votes on Fri — and much closer to 10M than 9.5M. Given 20% of those surveyed planned on voting on election day...
I think we’ll hit 12M+ total Texas votes, and shock Punditry, the GOP, and the nation by going blue this year, and bringing Biden to over 400 EVs.
Other information
Kamala Harris is coming to Texas on Friday! Vote now, and then go see her! Right now, all we have is ‘North Texas and Houston’ for locations.
Given what we’re seeing elsewhere, there’s going to be shenanigans at the polling locations. Do you have a hotline number ready?
How to Help
Battleground Texas has been fighting the good fight since 2013, and building the momentum for just this sort of wave.
Join Beto and his Powered by People GOTV effort.
ProjectTurnout2020 lets you pick your battleground — and includes TX — to GOTV.
I just discovered the Sisters United Alliance, focused specifically on encouraging women to vote. Given how women have moved AWAY from the GOP, this is a great opportunity to run up the margins.
Jolt is the largest Latino Dem organization in the state, for more targeted GOTV.
For those wanting a legislative focus, how about flipping the TX State House?
Yosef wrote a wonderful diary chock full of resources — please check it out!