For our look at low voter turnout in Texas.
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On the sunny morning of Texas’ March primaries, Jorge Trujillo, 73, a retired packing factory salesperson, stood outside a senior center here canvassing for Homer Reza, a Democratic candidate for the Texas House.
“I think people have given up on politics,” Trujillo said, standing in the parking lot with his wife, Sylvia. “Seeing all this division, they simply don’t care anymore.”
The situation was stark, but not particularly surprising. This West Texas border town — with more than 677,000 residents, most of them Mexican American — is in a low voter-turnout county in a low voter-turnout state.
The county had 502,700 registered voters in the 2024 primaries, but only about 11% cast a ballot. That’s more than 7% lower than the last presidential primaries in 2020, and good for the second worst turnout rate in the state. In 2022 general midterm elections, 34% of El Paso’s registered voters cast a ballot, about 10% less than in the 2018 general midterms.
Statewide voter turnout for the 2024 primaries was 18%, lower than it was for the 2020 primaries. That’s typically low; Texas consistently ranks among the bottom 10 states in turnout.
While some political observers once again say the future of democracy is on the line in the 2024 presidential election, there appears to be voter fatigue — or apathy — in El Paso and elsewhere around the state.
On primary election day, The Texas Tribune spoke to voters and non-voters across various demographics and backgrounds in El Paso about why they were voting — or why they weren’t.
Among the reasons people gave: a general lack of knowledge about how to register, dissatisfaction with the two leading candidates for president and a lack of excitement for local candidates. Others said that state officials and presidential candidates are too focused on immigration, an issue they said that doesn’t directly affect them, even though they live on the border.
Some also expressed a feeling that has persisted for years in this border town nearly 600 miles from the state capital: El Paso is an afterthought for state officials in Austin.
