Early Voting In Texas Hits 8.8 Million: The Battle For Election Day Begins
High turnout sets the stage for a pivotal Election Day!
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick proved yesterday that while living in peak Idiocracy, at the very least, we’ll be entertained by the culty dum-dums. Republicans have spent the last four years shouting, “Fuck Joe Biden/Let’s Go Brandon.” They have t-shirts and giant flags they hang from their fences and trucks that say, “Fuck Joe Biden.”
During the Trump-Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden, one of the racist speakers called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.”
In response, Joe Biden gave a bumbling response, calling “Trump supporters garbage.”
Republicans are trying to turn it into this election cycle’s “deplorable” moment. Of course, Joe Biden isn’t on the ticket, and Kamala Harris has distanced herself from the comments, but that hasn’t stopped Republicans from embracing being garbage.
That’s why Dan Patrick posted a picture of himself sitting among garbage. To prove that Trump supporters are trash. This is not the first time Dan Patrick has leaned into the kind of self-parody that would be hard to write in fiction. The spectacle of the sitting Lt. Governor posing with literal garbage, all for a political counter-punch, underscores how far the conversation has drifted from policy to performative politics.
Republicans are becoming garbage to “own the Libs.” 🙄
Speaking of Republicans being trash…
Last night, Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson issued a statement implying that Republicans plan on nefarious activities on Tuesday.
About a month ago, Greg Abbott said that Texas purged a million voters from their voter rolls. Since then, Ken Paxton has been suing left and right to stop Texans from voting.
Democrats in Texas sent a letter to the Department of Justice, asking for federal monitors for this election. You know, because Republicans are slimy and crooked and can’t be trusted.
The Department of Justice announced yesterday that they would be sending federal election monitors to 27 states, including the following eight counties in Texas:
Bexar, Dallas, Harris, and Hays are big, blue counties. It’s good that the feds will be watching over them, making sure Republicans aren’t engaging in illegal activities.
Waller County is red and home to Prairie View A&M, an HBCU. Waller County Conservatives have tried for decades to disenfranchise the young, Black college students who attended.
But why Atascosa, Frio, and Palo Pinto? These are all smaller, red counties. Maybe it’s for sample size, or perhaps the feds know of disenfranchisement efforts that we are unaware of.
The Republican Secretary of State responded. She said that Texas will not allow federal election monitors in our state.
It seems pretty straightforward.
Republicans will use the 10th Amendment, states’ rights, to say that the state controls its elections and the federal government has no jurisdiction.
However, Section 3(a) of the Voting Rights Act grants federal observers the authority to monitor elections in jurisdictions where a court has determined that racial or language minority groups have been subject to voting discrimination. (In reality, that’s ALL of Texas.)
Additionally, Section 8 of the Voting Rights Act allows for the appointment of federal observers to oversee election procedures to ensure compliance with voting rights laws.
If Republicans have nothing to hide, then why would they block federal election monitors?
The state’s history is riddled with efforts to make voting more difficult for marginalized communities, whether through voter ID laws, reduced polling locations, or purges of voter rolls. These actions come amid a national climate where voting rights are increasingly threatened.
If Republican’s commitment to fair elections is as steadfast as they claim, allowing federal oversight should be a non-issue.
This begs the question: What are they trying to hide?
By positioning themselves as defenders of state sovereignty, Texas GOP leaders are effectively obstructing efforts to ensure every eligible vote is counted, especially in communities historically targeted by voter suppression.
What will happen now? Will the federal election monitors show up anyway and tell Texas, “Supremacy Clause, bitches.” Or do they not show up because Jane Nelson said so? Will this lead to a violent confrontation between the State of Texas and the federal government?
We’ll find out on Tuesday.
Until then, let’s discuss Day 12 of early voting election results, the final day of early voting.
Total early voting numbers for Texas.
Yesterday was a big turnout day, with several counties having their highest turnout day during the two weeks. A total of 868,554 Texans cast a ballot yesterday. The total early voting turnout:
8,887,809 votes.
Or, 45.7% of registered voters.
Of the 8.5 millions votes so far, 14% of them came from Harris County.
Dallas, Tarrant, and Bexar Counties each accounted for over 7% of the total state turnout.
In fact, looking at the top 25 most populous counties in Texas, they accounted for 80% of the total early turnout in Texas.
The biggest blue counties in Texas accounted for 51.17% of Texas’ early voter turnout, and the biggest red counties accounted for 28.84% of the early voter turnout it.
The share of total turnout by population area:
The 25 biggest counties: 80.01%
The next 50 counties (by population): 17.86%
The remaining 179 counties: 2.13%
That’s why I always say that turnout in the blue, urban areas is most crucial.
The total early voter turnout for 2024, compared with 2020:
While it seems like there is 825K less votes this year. Remember a few things:
Because of Covid-19 in 2020, we had 18 days to early vote.
The Election Day turnout in 2020 was much lower than it has been historically. We should see a much higher turnout this year.
The mail-in votes this year are just a fraction of what they were in 2020.
Our friend,
, over at See It. Name It. Fight It. uses a methodology, where he breaks all of the counties up into Tiers. Blue counties getting bluer, red counties getting redder, etc. Here is what he published this morning:
Chris doesn’t think we have the early votes in the right places yet to secure a statewide win for Democrats. I’m much more optimistic and think we’ll see a big Election Day turnout, giving us the numbers we need.
Crossover votes are not account for in his methodology. We still don’t know how many crossover votes there will be. If there is 1%, well, that’s no good. If it’s 10%, that’ll be great for us.
Check out Chris’ entire analysis here.
Tuesday is going to be the day where turnout will determine if Texas goes blue or stays red. Anything under a 2 million vote turnout on Tuesday would probably keep us red. I’m expecting our Election Day turnout to be around 3 million, or more. If that’s the case, Harris and Allred could win.
I’m still optimistic.
If you’re worried, let me remind you that Republicans have not been making gains in Texas for the last decade. I think a worst case scenario would be that we don’t make any flips, and we stay exactly where we were in 2022 and 2020. But I don’t see that happening. We should, at very least, flip several Texas House seats.
According to Republican Ryan Data, here was the highest turnout by district:
A lot of these districts have Democrats working hard to flip them. Will they flip? We’ll find out on Tuesday.
Here is the daily turnout for the counties we were watching:
As we head into Election Day, it’s important to stay positive and keep our heads up.
The fight for Texas is not over, and we have every reason to remain hopeful. This election will be close—Texas is a battleground state, and that means we should expect it to come down to the wire.
If you know someone who hasn’t voted yet, make sure they get to the polls on Tuesday. Call them, remind them, drive them if you have to—and yes, threaten them with the disappointment of not doing their part if that’s what it takes. Every vote matters, and every voice counts.
We’ve seen encouraging signs throughout early voting, but Election Day is the true decider. Let’s keep pushing, stay vigilant, and show up strong. Texas is within reach, and together, we can make history. We can do this.
November 5: Election day!
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"If Republicans have nothing to hide, then why would they block federal election monitors?"
^^^^^ exactly correct.
Texas GOP like most Republican states can not be trusted. They are fascists. I certainly hope feds send the election monitors.
There is a major Republican civil war in Texas. There is NO evidence that they have made amends. Hence I predict some Democratic upsets throughout Texas. Driven by (1)Higher than normal democratic turnout (2) Independents leaning democractic this cycle turned off by the Repubican civil war (3) Crossover Republicans hoping to take back their party from MAGA extremist.