Let’s jump right in. Here’s the Day Two report for 2020, and here are the totals from 2012, 2016, and 2018. As of Day One from those years :
Year Mail Early Total
==============================
2012 5,100 3,035 8,135
2016 7,191 6,810 14,001
2018 5,651 6,976 12,627
2020 12,017 12,779 24,796
2012 11,116 6,730 17,846
2016 9,757 9,621 19,378
2018 7,817 6,138 16,955
2020 13,287 11,362 24,649
A couple of clarifications: I had yesterday’s mail and in person totals reversed for the non-2020 years (they’re fixed now), so sorry for the confusion. The group on the top is Dems, and on the bottom is Republicans. Right now, Dems lead in in-person votes while Republicans lead in mail ballots returned. However, Dems have 37K ballots mailed out, while the GOP has only 30K, so that lead could disappear. It’s the in-person votes that will be the biggest factor, though, and as is typically the case Day Two is a little down from Day One, but well head of 2016, with the Dems having a much bigger increase.
Here’s a very early look at who voted on Day One on the Dem side:
Took a quick look at the approximately 18K Dem primary voters in Harris County (mail and in-person) through yesterday, Feb 18th. About 60% of these folks are mail ballot voters, so this early look will skew older than as we go along. #txlege #2020Primary 1/
— Keir Murray (@houtopia) 12:51 PM – 19 February 2020
Click over for the thread. These numbers will change quickly as the in-person totals begin to swamp the mail ballots. I’ll stay on top of it as we go.