Here are your final EV totals for the May 2024 primary runoffs. I’ll go ahead and break out a chart, as per tradition:
Party Mail Early Total
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Dem 11,534 16,421 27,955
GOP 662 1,861 2,523
Again, one must remember that the Dems have three countywide races plus three legislative races in blue districts, while all the Republicans have are two Congressional runoffs in blue districts. There are multiple early voting locations where no Republican votes were cast, all because there were no Republican runoffs anywhere nearby. Shoutout in particular to the EV location at the Hockley Community Center in HD132, where a grand total of 20 votes were cast all week, all on the Democratic side.
Over 10K mail ballots were cast on the Dem side as of day one, and it wasn’t until Friday that the in person totals for Dems surpassed the mail ballots. Only about 42% of the mail ballots have been returned so far, which is probably indicative of where these voters are – my best guess is that the rate of return is much higher in SD15, HD139, and HD146 than everywhere else. On the GOP side, about 25% of the mail ballots were returned.
I’m not going to try to guess what final turnout might look like. I could look back at past primary runoffs and make some seat of the pants projections based on prior patterns, but it’s a waste of time. Runoffs are just too individualized, and my guesser has been especially off the last three times (since last November) I’ve tried. In all three cases, the share of early voting was higher, in some cases much higher, than past performance and my own intuition suggested. I’m not falling for that trick again. Whatever happens on Tuesday happens. I don’t think it matters much for any specific race, nor does it Mean Something for November. This is what it is. If you haven’t voted yet, go do so. I’ll post the results on Wednesday.