Texas is seeing a surge in early voting as Democratic Rep. James Talarico and Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton vie for a U.S. Senate seat in a state where Democrats haven’t won a statewide election in 32 years.
More than 4.5 million Texans have already voted since early voting began a week ago, according to figures released Monday by the Texas Secretary of State.
D. Stephen Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky, said News week that the Texas Senate race, considered a toss-up, will draw more voters to the polls.
“Voters turn out in large numbers when they believe an election is close,” Voss said. “Part of that is because voters themselves are becoming more engaged, but it’s also a result of all the outside organizations flooding into the area and trying to mobilize the electorate.”
Early voting in Texas is up 74% from the same point in the 2022 midterm election cycle.
What early voting shows
As News week As previously reported, early voting began on October 19 with a record 19 million registered voters in Texas, despite technological glitches that forced counties to process thousands of voter records delayed or corrected days before.
As of October 26, Texas had recorded 4,538,667 early votes, in person and by mail, according to unofficial numbers released by the Texas Secretary of State. That’s almost 24 percent of registered voters.
The following table shows the cumulative number of in-person and mail-in voters in the Texas counties with the highest turnout as of Monday:
- Harris: 624,646 votes
- Dallas: 371,806 votes
- Tarrant: 337,084 votes
- Bexar: 302,224 votes
- Travis: 264,016 votes
- Collin: 218,979 votes
- Denton: 197,201 votes
- Fort Bend: 164,848 votes
- Montgomery: 103,659 votes
- El Paso: 94,879 votes
What the latest polls show
Texas has long eluded Democrats in statewide elections, and the party is seeking its first statewide election victory since 1994 as Talarico faces Paxton in a hotly contested U.S. Senate race.
The RealClearPolitics polling average, covering surveys conducted Oct. 8-21, puts Talarico ahead of Paxton by 1.5 percentage points, between 48.4 and 46.9 percent.
Individual polls also show a very close competition.
A Fox News poll conducted October 15-19 found the candidates tied at 49 percent among likely voters, with a margin of error of ±2.5 percentage points. An Emerson College/Nexstar poll conducted Oct. 17-19 placed Talarico at 49 percent and Paxton at 48 percent, with a margin of error of about ±3 percentage points. Texas Public Opinion Research found Talarico leading 51 percent to 47 percent in a poll conducted Oct. 15-18, with a margin of error of ±3.9 percentage points.
The RealClearPolitics polling average does not have a single margin of error because it combines multiple polls.
“This race is TIED!” » Paxton posted to X on October 21. “This race is a stalemate, and every support counts.”
Voss said the close race could help Republicans mobilize their supporters, but cautioned that Democrats could have an edge in enthusiasm.
“If the Paxton camp is lucky, the competitive environment preys on former GOP supporters,” Voss said. “What Republicans should fear is that Texas could exhibit the same gap in Democratic enthusiasm seen in special elections since Trump returned to office.”
An Oct. 12 report from advertising tracking firm AdImpact found that $490.4 million was spent on advertising in the Texas Senate race for the primary, runoff and general election, making it the second-costliest non-presidential race on record.
Billionaire Elon Musk has also contributed heavily to Republican-aligned groups supporting Paxton. He donated $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, which gave the same amount to the Texas PAC, a major outside group supporting Paxton. Musk also contributed $10 million to the Lone Star Liberty PAC, which supports Paxton.
“Elon Musk is trying to buy this Senate seat in Texas,” Talarico posted in X on October 20. “He wants our land, he wants our water and he wants his own U.S. senator. He’s trying to buy Texas.”
News week has contacted the Paxton and Talarico campaigns for comment.
Newsweek Reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors about this story: Steven Frank And Edward T. Cummins.
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