The Texas Democratic Party had some run-offs to be settled. Most prominently was in the race for Governor, where Lupe Valdez faced Andrew White. Valdez led in the March primary, but didn't get 50%.
The chart above shows the early voting total for Democrats in the 30 counties with the largest population. The counties are listed in order of their number of registered voters, with the largest number of registered voters at the top (Harris 2,257,546) and the smallest number at the bottom (Randall 85,302).
Run-off early voting was only held for 5 days -- compared to 11 days in the March primary. So it's not surprising to see fewer people voting in a lot of the counties. Also, fewer people tend to vote in run-offs than in the primary. We'll have to see how strong the turnout is on election day -- Tuesday May 22nd.
I don't have a clue as to how the governor's race candidacy will turn out. Fortunately, I like both candidates, and can easily support either in the November election. I urge my fellow Democrats to vote in the run-off. If you didn't vote early, then please do that on Tuesday. It would look good to have a strong showing, plus the fact that Texas Democrats need to get in the habit of voting in EVERY election and run-off.
Too often in the past, Democrats have not bothered to vote because they didn't think we had a chance of winning. Texas is changing though, and this year we do have a chance -- but only if we all make sure to vote!
The early voting numbers in the chart above are from the office of the Texas Secretary of State.
Lowest Democratic runoff turnout since 1920.
ReplyDeleteDo you know what the population of Texas was in 1920? Just under 4.8 million (or about what Houston is today). Today? Over 28 million. So that's a D turnout of about 9% compared to less than 1.5% in 2018.
Best of luck to all the Texas Democratic Blue Dogs in November (you're going to need it).