The party that draws more voters in Texas’ open primaries is not a reliable indicator for who will win the general election in November.
“Turnout in the state for primary elections remains perpetually low. But this is true regardless of election year,” said Joshua Blank, the executive director of the Texas Politics Project. “It’s not representative or indicative of what’s going to happen in the coming election cycle.”
In the 2020 presidential primary, more Democrats cast ballots than Republicans. But in November, Donald Trump won by 5.6 percentage points in Texas.
Early voting numbers are also not predictive of total turnout. For years, early voting data reported by the state compounded confusion about overall turnout, because it only included data from the 15 counties with the most registered voters. These counties include Texas’ largest cities and the largest concentration of Democratic voters. In 2018, the counties were Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, Collin, Denton, El Paso, Fort Bend, Hidalgo, Montgomery, Williamson, Galveston, Brazoria and Cameron.
During the 2018 primary election, the state initially reported early voting data that showed more Democrats voted early than Republicans. But it was incomplete and when all counties were ultimately tallied; more Republicans had cast votes in the primary.
A law passed in 2019 requires all 254 counties to report who has voted early to the state, allowing the secretary of state to report more complete early voting counts.
Primary voters tend to be more engaged in politics compared with the rest of the electorate, whether that involves news consumption or engagement with civic organizations, according to Blank.
Republican primary voters skew white and more conservative than the overall party, and Democratic primary voters skew whiter, more liberal and more suburban than the overall party, Blank added.
