See How Early Voting Is Going Compared To Past Elections

Early voting for the midterms this year started October 24 and it will end on November 4. Although voting during midterm elections usually generate less enthusiasm than presidential elections, but this year elections will be help in a context of deep polarization regarding issues like abortion, same sex marriage and women rights and that is why some analysts expect a similar vote to the 2018 presidential election. There are 17.6 million registered voters in the state and The Texas Tribune has recently published data that track how much people voted during the early vote period. 

According to the data from the Texas secretary of state, 4,237,991 have casted their vote so far. The means this year’s midterms have the lowest early voting numbers compared with the 2018 and 2020 elections. In 2018, 35.7% voted early, in 2020, 57.3% voted early and in 2022, early vote has had 24.0% turnout so far. 

The analisis published by the Tribune found out that more than half of Texas’ registered voters live in the state’s 10 largest counties, so early-voting results in these counties could give a glimpse of where the contest is headed because of their sheer size. Traditionally, this counties have leaned Democrat and every poll suggests these counties will again vote Blue, which does not mean that Texas elections will necessarily favor the Democrats as the GOP strongly controls the rural counties and small communities of the state. 

This data mean that although the Democratic effort is enormous, early voter have not necessarily correspond this with enthusiasm in the voting polls.