The Texas Showdown: Update On Day 5 Of Early Voting

Inside the Battle for Texas: Blue, red, and battleground counties.

Did you watch Kamala Harris’ rally last night online? It’s reported that over 7 million people across all platforms, outside of cable, watched Kamala Harris’ Houston rally with Beyoncé. That’s more viewers than the most recent CMAs, VMAs, Emmys and Tony’s.

30,000 Texans packed the stadium last night for Kamala Harris’s biggest rally since announcing her presidential bid. The energy and excitement in that arena were electrifying. It was something else.

We Texas Democrats love our political rallies, but we also know that rallies don’t always equate to votes. If you haven’t seen it yet, look it up on YouTube. It was fantastic, and Colin Allred gave one of his best speeches.

One of my favorite moments was listening to 30,000 people chant, “Beat Ted Cruz.”

Remember, Ted Cruz and Colin Allred are neck-in-neck in the polls.

Democrats in Texas haven’t won a statewide race in 30 years, but Colin Allred may finally be the person to break that strike.

What do the Day 5 turnout numbers look like?

• 845,581 Texans cast their ballot yesterday.

• A total of 4,480,384 ballots have been cast so far.

• 24.06% of registered voters have made it to the polls.

The in-person numbers are still higher than in 2020, but because the mail-in votes are much lower, our total votes in 2024, after Day 5, are less than in 2020.

According to AP News, more Republicans are voting early this year. But what does that look like for us?

Looking at the five biggest counties in Texas yesterday, Dallas, Tarrant, and Bexar had their biggest day.

Harris and Travis’ highest turnout day was still Monday. Harris County Democrats were most likely in line for yesterday’s Kamala Harris rally, and Houston’s traffic was garbage. Yesterday was their third biggest day in Harris County.

We haven’t discussed Travis County much. Blue faithful, Travis County is blue and getting bluer. Its Day 5 numbers in 2024 exceed those from 2020 in both raw numbers and percentage of registered voters. Travis County is doing great.

We’re also seeing something interesting from Tarrant County. While Tarrant is Texas’s third-most populous county, it’s seeing the second-highest turnout behind Harris County.

Does that mean Dallas County’s turnout lags or Tarrant’s surges? It’s hard to say.

Tarrant County has been ground zero for Christian Nationalism and white supremacy within the Republican Party. Aside from the megachurches contributing to this, like Mercy Culture and Gateway Church, the Tarrant County GOP brought in big stars like Tucker Carlson. Not to mention True Texas Project, a far-right Republican political organization with well-publicized ties to Neo-Nazis and Tim Dunn’s far-right PAC and PAC members, all reside in Tarrant.

The Tarrant County Commissioners Court and various City Councils have been regular circuses with far-right loonies pushing their ilk in those bodies to implement fascism in various aspects of local government. However, the community has been pushing back.

Tarrant County went blue for Biden in 2020 by approximately +0.5 points. The far-right has called Tarrant their stronghold for years, but they no longer represent the county. It’s now a majority-minority county, with the white population only at 42%.

There’s a saying that I never believed in. “So goes Tarrant County, so goes Texas.” I didn’t believe it because Texas didn’t go blue in 2020. But maybe this year, that saying is closer to true. We’ll see. Are we seeing the far-right clawing to hold on to power here, or are we seeing the rest of the community clawing to take them down?

One thing is for sure: voter turnout in Tarrant County on Day 5 of 2020 was higher than it was in 2020.

Collin and Denton County continue to see an increased turnout based on raw voters, but the total registered voters in Collin County haven’t entirely caught up yet.

Denton County still blows the rest of North Texas out of the water with voter turnout.

I’m also monitoring Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Bell Counties. All three are seeing higher turnout than in 2020.

Fort Bend County is a suburban County (like Collin and Denton). It’s also one of the most diverse counties in America. Fort Bend County is blue and getting bluer, indicating what to expect from other suburban counties.

Brazoria County is getting bluer. It’s still red at this point, and it isn’t expected to flip this year, but the rapid diversification of this county may push more left in this cycle than anyone expects. Activists in Brazoria County keep telling me “not to sleep on Democrats down there.” We’ll see how it pans out.

Bell County is a majority-minority county with a history of low voter turnout. It’s been clear to political scientists for several years that if the voters in this county showed up, they could quickly turn the tides here. There are two Texas House seats in this county that Republicans gerrymandered into the shape of a doughnut to attempt to hold on to power. A high turnout in Bell County could flip both of those seats.

So far, Bell County has been seeing record turnout. Although they aren’t where we want them to be, they look substantially better than in 2020.

What about the border counties?

There are still seven days left of early voting, including today. I haven’t done the crunch on a handful of border counties, but from what I’m seeing, it isn’t looking great. With Republican billionaires dumping mountains of cash into the border, we are seeing a less engaged voter turnout, which could spell trouble for Democrats on election night.

The biggest three border counties are blue and will stay blue this election. However, some of the smaller counties may not. And we need to be prepared for that.

El Paso County and Hidalgo County’s turnout is -3 points less than on Day 5 in 2020. Remember, they still have plenty of time to vote. While Cameron County is only down -1 point, it’s important to remember that all these counties have low turnout.

In the next update, I’ll work on the numbers for the other border counties to give you a better picture. A high voter turnout in our biggest, bluest counties is most important in flipping the state. That will go a long way to flipping Texas and canceling out the Republican votes in rural Texas.

We’ve been discussing many blue (and turning blue) counties. What about the red counties?

I pulled the numbers on the top six biggest red counties, which also appear to see record turnout.

Texas is a battleground state, so we should expect to see Republican turnout like we expect Democrat turnout. To stress how important high turnout is in our blue, urban counties, these six red counties have seen a combined voter turnout of 385K. Harris County’s turnout is 608K.

You can see the early voting numbers on the Secretary of State’s office website: Here.

In the final days of early voting, the energy across Texas is unmistakable.

High turnout in both traditionally blue and red counties underscoring the stakes of this election.

Texas Democrats are showing up in numbers that signal real momentum, especially in our largest counties, but we must stay the course. Every vote in these urban and suburban areas can counter the steady turnout in red strongholds. If we keep this up, we may see history made in the Lone Star State. So let’s get out there, keep the pressure on, and make sure every Texan’s voice is heard.

• November 1: Last day to early vote.

• November 5: Election day!

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