We have one week completed for early voting, though it was only a six day week thanks to the Presidents Day holiday. Here are the daily totals from the County Clerk. Republicans continue to be the majority of early voters in Harris County, by almost a 3-1 margin. I thought it might be interesting to compare early voting totals so far in the 15 biggest counties from 2010 and 2014. The Secretary of State tracks this information, though they generally don’t update on weekends. As such, the best I can do for now is a comparison of the first four days for each. Here’s 2010, here’s 2014, and here’s how it looks in a table:
County 2010 R 2014 R Diff 2010 D 2014 D Diff
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Harris 21,067 25,789 4,722 12,358 9,541 -2,817
Dallas 9,326 16,777 7,451 6,140 10,246 4,106
Tarrant 11,491 18,164 6,673 2,689 7,851 5,162
Bexar 10,353 14,575 4,222 8,370 10,476 2,106
Travis 6,140 5,083 -1,057 4,614 7,798 3,384
Collin 7,419 8,593 1,174 726 1,456 730
El Paso 2,938 2,023 - 715 6,844 7,102 258
Denton 4,635 7,768 3,133 508 1,227 719
Fort Bend 4,470 4,967 497 1,179 1,266 87
Hidalgo 984 1,520 536 11,232 13,619 2,387
Montgomery 5,235 9,022 4,787 523 532 9
Williamson 4,810 4,585 - 225 1,056 1,413 357
Nueces 2,344 2,414 70 1,948 1,826 - 118
Galveston 1,838 4,010 2,172 1,607 910 - 697
Cameron 747 839 92 3,300 4,426 1,126
Total 93,797 126,129 32,332 63,094 79,689 16,595
Both parties’ turnout are up from 2010, though unsurprisingly the R side is up more. All those contested statewide races, and all the money in them, do have an effect. While there is a contested race for Governor on the D side, it’s not nearly as high profile as it was in 2010. Dems are depending more on local races for their turnout. On that note, whoever had Tarrant as the county with the largest gain in Democratic primary voters so far, please come collect your winnings. Still, it’s good to see turnout up in the places that have hot primaries up and down the county ballot – Dallas, Travis, and Bexar, in particular. The dropoff in Harris County I would largely attribute to the turnout driven in 2010 by the Bill White campaign. We have several contested county races, but nothing of that stature, and only one legislative primary that’s likely to move a significant number of people, that being in SD15. The dropoff in Galveston is probably in part a spillover effect of the lac of Bill White’s campaign, and in part due to Galveston having Democratic countywide incumbents running for re-election in 2010 but not in 2014. The dip in Republican primary turnout so far in Williamson, and the modest growth in Collin, are interesting if the trends continue, but not necessarily suggestive of anything. Surely Dallas County has shown us that there isn’t necessarily a correlation between primary turnout and partisan performance in November. And of course this is only through Day Four. We’ll see how it looks after all the early votes are in.
One other thing that the SOS historic early voting pages can show you is the registered voter totals for each of the top 15 counties. Let me add in the 2006 Day 4 page to show you how these numbers have changed over time.
County 2006 2010 2014 06-14 Diff
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Dallas 1,168,476 1,129,814 1,170,598 2,122
Travis 544,483 586,882 627,040 82,557
El Paso 367,284 375,128 390,949 23,665
Hidalgo 271,132 290,097 307,426 36,294
Cameron 161,648 171,024 181,802 20,154
Tarrant 882,459 924,682 969,434 86,975
Collin 369,493 413,772 466,533 97,040
Denton 320,307 355,340 388,608 68,301
Montgomery 217,354 243,027 270,019 52,665
Williamson 200,285 230,122 259,878 59,593
Harris 1,880,042 1,889,378 2,006,270 126,228
Bexar 877,484 891,082 915,839 38,355
Fort Bend 257,140 300,777 349,550 92,410
Nueces 193,079 188,165 184,789 -8,290
Galveston 183,805 179,928 185,850 2,045
I separated the top 15 counties into three groups: Strong D, strong R, and in between. Quibble with my choices if you want, it works well enough for me. Note that these are all March numbers; we will see further changes in November. I’m delighted to see such a large jump in Harris County. That number was just barely over 2 million in November 2012, but it was back under 2 million in 2013. It’s also nice to see Dallas County regain all the voters they lost between 2006 and 2010. I don’t have anything to add beyond that. I just wanted to present this data to you as an FYI.
Amazing post Charles!! I think you hit on a good point there noting why there’s a drop-off in Harris and Galveston counties from the 2010 D turnout. Just as we had “The White effect” back then, the substantial increase in D turnout in Dallas and Tarrant is clearly related to “The Davis effect”… people are coming out to support Wendy Davis on her home turf.
I hope Battleground Texas is doing the very same research as you. These numbers tell the story of how wide of an enthusiasm gap there is between the Republicans and Democrats. On the R side, voters show up for every election, so it’s no surprise that they always get their way. It’s also a clear indicator of where D groups need to focus between now and November. A county like Nueces is so close between D and R, and it even shows by the primary numbers. But the Republicans have the advantage because they know how to keep the enthusiasm up.
Is it possible that some of the Democratic turnout in 2010 was also fueled by Sheila Jackson Lee’s contested primary? Just food for thought — we had ~101,000 votes countywide that year in the primary, about 1/3 of which came from Sheila’s 18th district.
On that note, whoever had Tarrant as the county with the largest gain in Democratic primary voters so far, please come collect your winnings.
I’m pleasantly surprised by this. I live in SD-10 and have received more calls from Republicans than Democrats, even though my wife and I have voted in every Democratic Primary since we have moved to Tarrant in 2003.