Worried enough to fundraise off of the Dems’ EV numbers, for what that’s worth.
Through Sunday in the 15 Texas counties with the most registered voters, 135,070 people had voted in the Republican primary and 151,236 in the Democratic. Compared to the first six days of early voting in 2014, Democratic turnout increased 69 percent, while Republicans saw a 20 percent increase.
The Democrats even surpassed their early voting totals from the 2016 primary — a presidential election year.
Sen. Ted Cruz told a group of Republican voters this month that the left would “crawl over broken glass in November to vote … We could get obliterated at the polls,” and other Republicans appear to be taking the Democratic surge seriously. Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign sent supporters an email Monday asking for donations to help him get out the vote, warning that the early voting numbers “should shock every conservative to their core.”
“I’ll be blunt: Democrat voter turnout is surging statewide during Early Voting,” reads the email, using bold and italicized red print. The email states that the last time Democratic primary voters came out so strongly was in the 1990s, during a gubernatorial election cycle, and that Democrats are flipping seats in special elections across the country in Republican strongholds.
“We’ve seen a surge of liberal enthusiasm in deep red states like Georgia, Alabama, and Oklahoma,” the email says. “We had always hoped the liberal wave would never hit Texas, but these Early Voting returns aren’t encouraging so far.”
Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said it’s interesting that Democrats are turning out at a rate more frequently seen in presidential election years. After looking at the relationship between primary and general election voters, he concluded that more votes in Democratic primaries correlate with more Democratic votes in general elections. But he said Republicans usually turn out in higher numbers to vote in the general election no matter how they voted in the primary.
“Usually Republicans tend to run up the numbers in the general and are beating their opponents by big margins, so the relationship is not positive, but it is for Democrats,” Rottinghaus said. “Because the [Democrats’] enthusiasm is so high, you’re likely to see more support for Democrats in November and that’s likely to cut into the margins that they’ll lose to Republicans.
Fearmongering isn’t the same as being fearful, and it’s not like we haven’t seen this kind of language before. Republicans used Battleground Texas to scare the yokels in 2014, after all. It’s just that this year the voting numbers back up their apocalyptic pronouncements. It doesn’t mean anything yet, but it should at least quiet the narrative that Dems don’t turn out for primaries.
And here are those Monday numbers that didn’t come in till late Tuesday morning:
EV 2010
EV 2014
Day 7 EV 2018 totals
Year Party Mail In Person Total
=======================================
2010 Dem 4,571 14,018 18,589
2010 Rep 9,376 21,421 30,797
2014 Dem 4,471 10,210 14,681
2014 Rep 13,573 23,930 37,503
2018 Dem 11,207 30,664 41,871
2018 Rep 13,812 27,497 41,309
Dems outvoted Republicans in person and by returned mail ballot on Monday, and thus took the lead in overall turnout. They have already exceeded their early vote total from 2014, and ought to surpass the overall 2014 turnout on Wednesday. I feel like Dems will easily top the 101,263 ballots cast in 2010, thus making this the biggest primary outside of the insane 2008 experience. Whatever it means, the excitement is real.
UPDATE: Here are Tuesday’s numbers, which did come in on Tuesday evening. Let’s just assume I’m going to be a day behind on these, OK? Dems outperformed Republicans by another 500 votes, and are just shy of 50K votes overall.
All those that stand with the traitorous Clown that sits in the White House are as guilty of conspiring with Russia to destroy Democracy as the Clown himself.
The new Republican Party now known as the Trump Party has become a party of traitors, racists, bigots, anti-Americans, is it a surprise that millions of people see the Trump Party for what it has become and are voting to erase this blemish from our great country.
November will be worse for the Trump Party as Trump is like the fool that does not know that he is a fool and he will continue being what he is, and the supporters are so desperate for his love that they would follow him. God Bless America!
I have a theory that Republicans are waiting later to vote this year because many are undecided in the CD2 congressional contest, and want more time to study the candidates. We’ll see.
Manny, you are spot on.
The Republican Party currently believes in nothing but party over country.
Manny,
Comments like that is what made Trump win. How could anyone vote Democrat when you have that much hatred. It is as bad as the bigots you complain about.
Paul,
Democrats hatred? Funniest thing I’ve heard all day.
Which part was not true Paul? They all don’t apply to each individually, but with some exception one of the statements is true. Don’t you believe that Trump worked with the Russians?