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For the first time since 2008, more Texans voted in the Democratic presidential primary than in the Republican primary — but just barely.
With all polling places tallied Thursday, Democrats had cast 2,076,046 votes in the pitched contest to take on President Donald Trump in November. Meanwhile, Republicans cast 2,008,385 votes in the presidential contest. Overall, a small majority of votes — 2,071,745 — came during early voting, and 2,012,686 were cast on election day, according to the Texas secretary of state’s office.
More than anything, turnout in presidential primary elections has historically served as a measure of the competitiveness of the race and the heightened enthusiasm that comes with that. That was particularly true this year when the Democratic field narrowed significantly just before Super Tuesday, when Texas’ massive haul of delegates came up for grabs.
Republicans voting in the presidential primary had outpaced Democrats during the state’s early voting period. The opposite was true on election day.
The increased election day turnout was felt on the ground. In Bexar County, election officials said they averaged 6,000 voters an hour in the first three hours of voting.
To no one’s surprise given the state’s depressing turnout history, a small slice of Texas’ total electorate participated in Tuesday’s presidential primary. With 16.2 million Texans registered to vote, just 25.2% cast a ballot in the primary election.
