Early voting has ended for Tuesday’s primary elections. Unofficial, preliminary totals indicate early turnout is a little south of 10% of registered voters, but the totals are presently incomplete. Several counties, including Galveston Co., do not appear to have reported any totals for Friday, the final day of the early voting period which typically sees some of the highest volume. Early voting totals will also rise as mail ballots arrive through Tuesday, assuming they meet the new requirements and can be counted.
As it stands, early voting turnout could be record-setting for gubernatorial primaries, at least for the Republican primary. We will need to see final numbers to be certain.
As of the information currently available, just over 1M people have voted in the Republican primary statewide, and just over 625K people have voted in the Democratic primary statewide. In the 15 counties with the most registered voters, we estimate 530K Republicans have voted, which is 110K more than in 2018 and just ahead of the 2020 figure, making it the second-highest early turnout figure for those counties. Cameron, Hidalgo and Montgomery Cos. have seen record early turnout, and Galveston Co. might have also set a record on the Republican side.
On the Democratic side, around 480K people voted in those 15 counties, which is slightly ahead of the 2018 total but well behind 2020 (770K) and 2008 (890K).
AG (Lean R): Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton’s (R) campaign filed an amended 8-day-out report disclosing an additional $1.8M in expenditures. This level of previously undisclosed spending was anticipated given the reduction in his cash on hand total over the period. Paxton also reported receiving an additional $53K in contributions in three daily pre-election reports. Eva Guzman reported an additional $452K in contributions, all but $20K of which was an in-kind contribution from Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC for political advertising. George P. Bush reported an additional $45K in contributions, and Louie Gohmert reported receiving an additional $12K. As a reminder, we do not update our Crib Sheets with information from daily pre-election reports.
HD147 open (Safe D): Gov. Greg Abbott (R) ordered a May 7 special election to fill the unexpired term of Rep. Garnet Coleman (D-Houston), who is resigning effective Monday. Candidates must file by March 7, a few days after the primary election narrows the Democratic field seeking a full term to one or two candidates. Early voting will begin April 25.
