Nearly 4.5 million Texans voted in the first seven days of early voting — a turnout higher than the 2022 midterm election turnout, but slightly behind 2018, when Democrat Beto O’Rourke lost by 2.6 points before unseating U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
From Oct. 19 through Sunday, 23.4% of registered Texas voters had cast ballots or cast absentee ballots, according to data from the Texas Secretary of State. In 2018, turnout was 24.3% during the first seven days of early voting.
Derek Ryan, a Republican consultant and data analyst, expects the pace of early voting to pick up this week, leading to a busy voting day Friday, when the early voting period closes. Election day is November 3.
“We could see between 20 and 30 percent of the votes cast in this election on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week,” he said.
Ryan predicts that as many as 10 million Texans could vote, which would put final 2026 turnout around 2018’s 53%.
Beyond the numbers showing enthusiasm for a non-presidential election year, experts warn against reading too much into early voting numbers. Texas voters do not register by political party, making it difficult to determine the partisan makeup of early voters. Consultants analyze past turnout in primaries and use demographic data to estimate trends.
Early voting data also offers an incomplete picture because each county reports its daily results to the state on its own.
“I think there’s sometimes a tendency to overinterpret early voting numbers because we don’t have good benchmarks,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University. “It’s an evolving process, and each election tends to be a little unique.”
An analysis of the first seven days of early voting found that those who had previously voted in a Democratic primary accounted for 35% of the votes cast, slightly ahead of 33% for Republican primary voters, Ryan said. About 29% had never voted before or only participated in a general election, while 4% had mixed participation in the primaries.
The early Democratic numbers were unprecedented, Ryan said.
“This is actually new territory,” he said. “I don’t think I remember a time when voters with Democratic primary history outnumbered voters with Republican primary history. … In 2022 and 2024 at this point, even in those early days, Republican primary voters were a larger share.”
Vinny Minchillo, a GOP strategist, said Democrats’ initial surge shows their enthusiasm remains higher than the GOP’s, but it also boosted Republican turnout statewide.
“Their enthusiasm numbers and their poll numbers don’t match the Democrats’, but that doesn’t mean they won’t show up,” Minchillo said. “After the first or second day of early voting, you saw Republicans pull out. … So I have to say, on behalf of Republicans everywhere, that I’m cautiously optimistic.”
Matt Angle, a Democratic strategist, said strong turnout in urban counties, coupled with the fact that rural voters make up less than 25% of all votes cast, was good news for Democrats.
“If you look at turnout based on where it’s from, voter history and racial makeup, then Democrats are doing better. They’re certainly ahead of the pace in 2022,” Angle said. “There is every reason to be optimistic, but it is also important to be realistic: we don’t know how people vote.”
Harris County, the state’s most populous county, set a turnout record for the first day of early voting in the midterms, when more than 127,000 people cast ballots. Dallas County set a record for the most early voting on the first day of an election, when more than 88,000 people cast ballots.
Angle said Democrats want about 40% of the final vote to come from large urban counties and less than 25% from rural counties — and early voting shows that benchmark is being met. He also wants greater participation from Latin American communities.
“Hispanics have understood that Republicans are targeting them and are openly hostile to Hispanics as a group,” Angle said. “I think they respond accordingly.”
Data compiled by Ryan shows Hispanic voters made up 18% of early voters Sunday — 1 percentage point higher than in 2024 and 2 points above 2022. Angle said Democrats want Latino voters to make up about 24% of the final vote.
Ryan said he would seek to hear from the more than 2.1 million Texans who voted in one of the last four Republican primaries but have not yet voted in the general election.
“For Republicans to have any chance of victory, they will need to see a significant number of those 2.1 million show up at the polls,” Ryan said. “We’ll start to really know what the situation looks like by Thursday or Friday.”
A record 19 million Texans are registered to vote for the November 3 election, 7.7% more than the number registered before the November 2022 midterms.
Disclosure: Rice University has financially supported the Texas Tribune for the past five years. The Texas Tribune is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that is funded in part by donations from its members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial support plays no role in our journalism. Find a full list of them and more information about our financial and disclosure policies here.
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