Early voting in person has concluded. Tuesday is Election Day.

Turnout rebounded yesterday (Thursday) but remained lower than last week. More than 4.33M people have voted in person or by mail in the 30 counties with the most registered voters, corresponding to a turnout of 35.4%. This exceeds total statewide turnout for 2014, when 33.7% of registered voters cast ballots early or on Election Day.

Every one of the Top 30 counties, save for Jefferson Co., has now officially exceeded their respective 2014 vote totals, including Election Day.

In the 15 counties with the most registered voters, 3.67M people have voted in person or by mail through Thursday, an increase of more than 2.2M over 2014 but around 330K fewer than in 2016. On Thursday, 331K ballots were cast in person and by mail in the 15 counties, which ranks the day 8th out of 11 so far.

In the 15 counties for which we have data going back to 2004, general election-only voters have supplanted Republican primary voters as the largest voting bloc.

According to Republican political consultant Derek Ryan’s latest analysis, there are nearly 150K more voters with Republican primary history than with Democratic primary history. Nearly two thirds of recent primary voters have cast ballots so far during early voting, but less than a third of general election-only voters have done so.

Voters under age 30 have cast around 12% of early votes, up from 6% in 2014 but down slightly from 2016. Voters aged 70 and older have cast around 18% of early votes, down from 23% in 2014 but up from 15% in 2016.

Looking at today, preliminary numbers suggest early voting ended on a high note. In Harris Co., nearly 100K voted today in person and by mail, second only to Day 1. In Tarrant Co., more than 51K voted in person, the highest single-day total this year. In Bexar Co., more than 42K voted today in person, also a single-day high for the year. Hidalgo, Montgomery and Williamson Cos. also saw higher turnout today.

We expect to have final numbers from the 30 big counties tomorrow (Saturday), but it could be Monday.

©2018 Texas Election Source LLC