A few notes on Tuesday’s presidential election results:
A record 8.93M Texans cast votes in this general election, and 6.17M registered voters didn’t. The number of votes cast is 10.5% more than the previous record set in 2008 and 11.7% more than in 2012.
Just over 59.1% of voters cast ballots for the presidential candidates and certified write-in candidates, up 0.55% from 2012 and down 0.37% from 2008. Turnout was the seventh highest and fifth lowest for a presidential election since 1976.
Not quite 43% of the estimated voting-age population voted, the fourth lowest figure for a presidential race since 1976. About 51% of the estimated voting-eligible population voted, 1.2% ahead of 2012 but 2.7% behind 2008.
The 6.17M non-voting registered voters nominally exceeds the previous record for a presidential election set in 2004, but non-countable write-in votes and blank votes likely mean the 2004 mark still stands. The number of non-voting registered voters exceeds the 2012 figure by 519K and the 2008 figure by 674K. For comparison, 9.31M registered voters sat out the 2014 gubernatorial election.
Around 11.9M voting-age Texans did not vote in this election. Of those, an estimated 8.6M could have. Both of those figures are the highest for any presidential election in state history.
Votes Cast for President Since 1976
2016 – 8,929,462
2008 – 8,077,795
2012 – 7,993,851
2004 – 7,410,765
2000 – 6,407,637
1992 – 6,154,018
1996 – 5,611,644
1988 – 5,427,410
1984 – 5,397,571
1980 – 4,541,637
1976 – 4,071,884
Early Vote Turnout Since 1996
2016 – 6,563,090
2008 – 5,351,660
2012 – 5,020,901
2004 – 3,779,124
2000 – 2,485,565
1996 – 1,774,834
Election Day Turnout Since 1996
2000 – 3,922,072
1996 – 3,836,810
2004 – 3,631,641
2012 – 2,972,950
2008 – 2,726,135
2016 – 2,366,372
For reference, here are the Election Day turnout figures for gubernatorial elections since 1996.
2002 – 2,894,011
1998 – 2,693,222
2006 – 2,666,851
2010 – 2,331,977
2014 – 2,159,814
Registered Voter Turnout
1992 – 72.92%
1980 – 68.40%
1984 – 68.32%
1988 – 66.17%
1976 – 64.83%
2008 – 59.50%
2016 – 59.13%
2012 – 58.58%
2004 – 56.57%
1996 – 53.24%
2000 – 51.81%
Estimated Voting-age Turnout
1992 – 50.2%
1988 – 47.3%
1984 – 47.0%
1976 – 46.3%
2004 – 45.5%
2008 – 45.5%
1980 – 44.9%
2016 – 42.9%
2000 – 42.3%
2012 – 41.7%
1996 – 41.2%
Estimated Citizen Voting-age Turnout
2008 – 53.7%
2004 – 53.2%
2016 – 51.0%
2012 – 49.8%
2000 – 49.5%
1996 – 46.6%
Estimated citizen voting-age population data not available prior to 1994.
Registered Voters Not Voting
2016 – 6,171,625
2004 – 6,102,436
2000 – 5,957,598
2012 – 5,652,375
2008 – 5,497,267
1996 – 4,929,034
1988 – 2,774,443
1984 – 2,502,596
1992 – 2,285,856
1976 – 2,209,265
1980 – 2,098,024
Voting-age Population Not Voting
2016 – 11,883,000
2012 – 10,285,000
2008 – 9,678,000
2004 – 8,874,000
2000 – 8,731,000
1996 – 8,010,000
1992 – 6,113,000
1984 – 6,060,000
1988 – 6,050,000
1980 – 5,575,000
1976 – 4,717,000
Estimates.
Voting-age Citizens Not Voting
2016 – 8,595,000
2012 – 8,068,000
2008 – 6,962,000
2000 – 6,529,000
2004 – 6,514,000
1996 – 6,440,000
Estimated citizen voting-age population data not available prior to 1994.
A record 6.56M votes were cast early. Early voters comprised a record 73% of all voters, up 10 percentage points from 2012 and 22 percentage points from 2008.
The number of voters going to the polls on Election Day fell to a level not seen in a presidential election since 1960. Just 15.7% of registered voters cast ballots on Election Day. The 2.37M Election Day voters is lower than every even-year general election (including gubernatorial elections) since at least 1996 except for 2010 (2.33M) and 2014 (2.16M). Nearly 3M voted on Election Day in 2012, so Election Day is down 20% from 2012 and 40% from 2000.
Donald Trump’s 4.68M votes are the most ever for a presidential candidate in Texas. Hillary Clinton’s 3.87M votes are the most ever for a Democratic candidate for any office.
Top Republican Candidate Vote Totals
4,880,502 – Eva Guzman (2016 SC9)
4,805,540 – Debra Lehrmann (2016 SC3)
4,788,504 – Mary Lou Keel (2016 CCA2)
4,782,814 – Mike Keasler (2016 CCA6)
4,780,074 – Scott Walker (2016 CCA5)
4,771,916 – Don Willett (2014 SC2)
4,756,272 – Paul Green (2016 SC5)
4,719,538 – Cathy Cochran (2008 CCA9)
4,692,420 – Elsa Alcala (2012 CCA8)
4,687,370 – Barbara Hervey (2012 CCA7)
4,681,590 – Donald Trump (2016 PRES)
4,646,878 – Wayne Christian (2016 RRC)
4,599,483 – John Devine (2012 SC4)
4,569,843 – Mitt Romney (2012 PRES)
4,537,625 – Barry Smitherman (2012 RRC)
4,526,917 – George W. Bush (2004 PRES)
4,504,264 – Cheryl Johnson (2004 CCA5)
Top Democratic Candidate Vote Totals
3,867,816 – Hillary Clinton (2016 PRES)
3,598,852 – Dori Contreras Garza (2016 SC5)
3,549,368 – Robert Burns (2016 CCA6)
3,528,633 – Barack Obama (2008 PRES)
3,525,141 – Sam Houston (2008 SC7)
3,502,135 – Betsy Johnson (2016 CCA5)
3,487,129 – Lawrence Meyers (2016 CCA2)
3,482,718 – Susan Strawn (2008 CCA3)
3,436,883 – Savannah Robinson (2016 SC9)
3,428,179 – Linda Yanez (2008 SC8)
3,406,174 – Mark Thompson (2008 RRC)
3,389,365 – Rick Noriega (2008 SEN)
3,374,433 – Jim Jordan (2008 SCCJ)
3,369,257 – Mike Westergren (2016 SC3)
3,353,485 – Grady Yarbrough (2016 RRC)
3,340,754 – J.R. Molina (2008 CCA4)
3,308,124 – Barack Obama (2012 PRES)
Trump’s 9.1-point win over Clinton was the closest presidential election in the state since 1996.
Gary Johnson’s 283K votes were the most for a minor party or independent candidate since 1996, and his 3.2% is the highest ever for a Libertarian or Green Party candidate.
Donald Trump won 227 of the state’s 254 counties. Trump received more votes than Mitt Romney in 219 counties. Measured as the percentage of the head-to-head vote against the Democratic candidate, Trump improved over Romney’s performance in 205 counties. He received at least 80% of the vote head-to-head against Clinton in 117 of those counties.
Hillary Clinton won 27 counties, one more than Obama won in 2012 and one less than Obama in 2008. Clinton won Fort Bend and Kenedy Cos., which Obama lost in 2012, and lost Jefferson Co., which Obama won in 2012. Obama won Brewster Co. in 2008, but he lost it in 2012 as did Clinton in 2016. John Kerry won 18 counties in 2004. Clinton received more votes than Obama did in 2012 in 81 counties. However, her margin of victory was smaller than Obama’s in 13 of the 25 counties they both won.
Measured as the percent of the vote head-to-head against Clinton, Trump received 29% of the vote to Clinton’s 71% in counties where at least 75% of the voting-age population is Hispanic/Latino. This is 2% below Romney’s performance in 2012, but Trump received nearly 15K more votes in those counties than Romney. Clinton received 67K more votes from those counties than Obama in 2012. That is less than the 74K-vote bump she received from Travis Co.
In 2014, Wendy Davis won 19 counties, and Greg Abbott’s head-to-head vote percentage exceeded 80% in 125 counties.
Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman received the most votes any candidate has ever received in Texas history. Women have received the three highest-ever vote totals for Republicans and two highest-ever vote totals for Democrats.
Our preliminary analysis of data from 100 counties indicates that 63% of votes cast for president were straight-ticket ballots, which is about 1 percentage point higher than in 2012 and 7 percentage points higher than in 2008.
