Texas Is Still A Red State (Despite Early Voting Numbers)

The early voting numbers published by the office of the Texas Secretary of State showed the number of voters who voted in each party's primary. Those numbers only contained the votes from the 15 largest Texas counties, but those counties contain about two-thirds of the state's registered voters. Those early voting numbers looked very good for Democrats. In those counties, about 45,000 more Democrats voted than Republicans.

The hope was that Democrats had held their own in the other counties (containing the other third of registered voters), and would keep pace with Republicans on election day. That would have shown Texas was on the verge of turning blue.

But that did not happen. In those other counties and on election day, the Republican Party reigned supreme. The charts above show the bad news. While Democrats did turn out in large numbers, the Republicans turned out in even larger numbers -- outvoting Democrats by more than half a million votes (Republicans 1,537,868 - Democrats 1,017,150). The Republican voters made up 10.08% of the state's registered voters, while the Democratic voters made up only 6.67%.

Those are not numbers that show a state on the verge of turning blue (or even purple). That day will come (thanks to demographic changes), but it's still a future change.

Having said that, there's still some things for Democrats to be encouraged by. They did turn out in record numbers for the primary. And considering the anger in the country, they could flip one or two U.S. House districts from Republican to Democrat. There is also an outside chance that Beto O'Rourke could unseat Ted Cruz in the Senate race. Cruz is not as popular as other statewide Republicans, and if some things happen (a large turnout by young voters and by voters in the Valley and urban areas, a significant number of women abandoning the GOP, and a well-run and financed campaign by O'Rourke) there could be a minor miracle in November.

Texas is not yet ready to turn blue -- sweeping statewide offices for Democrats and flipping the majority of House districts to Democrats. Those who thought that are simply wrong. But progress could be made this November, and that's good for now.