I’d written in my last diary that I think TX could go blue this year. There are a lot of reasons for that: TX has historically been non-voting, demographic change, Trump sucks, etc. But there’s another one: 1.5M. That’s how many new voters we have in TX since 2016. 1.5 million. Beto, mind you, lost the Senate race by...just over 200,000 votes.
Of course, Beto is not on the ticket, but Trump is. On the one hand, only one ballot drop box. On the other hand, an extra week of early voting.
So, just as I did in 2016 and 2018, I’m tracking the TX early vote. I’m even more time-lapsed than before thanks to currently being an ex-pat, but I’ve got my ballot right next to me and it’s getting mailed in tomorrow. It’s reporting and it’s voting, and I’m determined to do both. UNLIKE last year, however, I’m not going to try to reprise the ‘each day’ comparison because this year is not a normal year and there simply is no comparison. Instead, I’ll just have included the total early vote for the 16 top counties in TX as well as the numbers I’m able to collect.
*Note: At the time of this writing, I was unable to pull Collin, Ft Bend, or Nueces County information. El Paso County is based on news reports at the moment. I’ll keep trying, but if anyone has those numbers and can pass them on in the comments, please do and I’ll update!**Note 2: I’ve separated out mail-in ballots where I have the information. Where I don’t, I’m leaving just the information I have.
Texas Early Voting - 13 Oct
COUNTY |
early vote |
mail-in |
Daily Total |
2020 total |
2018 total |
2016 total |
Harris |
128,816 |
41,337 |
170,153 |
170,153 |
767k |
945k |
dallas |
59,905 |
|
59,905 |
59,905 |
494k |
542k |
tarrant |
42,428 |
|
42,428 |
42,428 |
434k |
508k |
bexar |
33,111 |
|
33,111 |
33,111 |
380k |
466k |
travis |
35,873 |
22,577 |
58,450 |
58,450 |
349k |
364k |
collin |
|
|
|
|
271k |
298k |
denton |
35,944 |
13,953 |
49,897 |
49,897 |
218k |
224k |
hidalgo |
18,805 |
6169 |
24,974 |
24,974 |
108k |
138k |
el paso |
19,000 |
14,800 |
23,800 |
23,800 |
130k |
146k |
ft Bend |
|
|
|
|
187k |
212k |
montgomery |
10,383 |
10,491 |
20,874 |
20,874 |
125k |
155k |
williamson |
15,373 |
10,377 |
25,750 |
25,750 |
153k |
150k |
cameron |
10,985 |
|
10,985 |
10,985 |
51k |
63k |
brazoria |
13,203 |
6062 |
19,265 |
19,265 |
83k |
99k |
bell |
3386 |
2511 |
6067 |
6067 |
54k |
67k |
nueces |
|
|
|
|
61k |
74k |
totals |
423,196 |
128,277 |
551,473 |
551,473 |
3.75M |
4.3M |
NB’s personal guess: we need about 7M votes pre-election to turn TX blue. In previous elections, there’ve been about 5M early votes (which tend to skew blue), but this year is different. So my line in the sand is 7M, and we’ll see how close I am.
What does the chart mean?
Right now, we’ve already got 550k votes cast. At least — and that’s with three of the big counties not accounted for. My guess is also that the counties where I don’t have mail-in ballots listed, there are mail-in ballots tracked separately. That means that my guess is that we have somewhere over 100k more votes cast than I have recorded.
That would put day 1 of early voting at...right about 10% of the total early vote I’m guessing we need to flip TX. And we don’t have 9 days to go, we have 17.
GOTV! Help turn TX blue!