This article was adapted from our premium politics newsletter, The Blast, which delivers exclusive reporting, nonpartisan analysis and the first word on political moves across the state. Subscribe today.
Multiple counties are reporting record-breaking turnout on Day 1 of early voting, offering fresh tea leaves for election watchers to analyze in the U.S. Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico.
Harris County, the state’s largest and a blue-leaning cache of votes, set its record for turnout for the first day of voting in a midterm. Dallas County, meanwhile, saw its highest number of Day 1 early votes ever.
The phenomenon isn’t limited to blue counties. The GOP stronghold of Montgomery County experienced record midterm turnout, as did North Texas’ Ellis County and Central Texas’ Bell and McLennan Counties.
As early voting continues and election watchers run wild with their way-too-early predictions, Renzo Downey, the lead writer of our premium newsletter The Blast, is here to guide you through how to interpret the onslaught of data.
Step No. 1: Give it a few days.
Campaign consultants on both sides of the aisle caution that it’s difficult to glean too much from a single day of the early vote.
“You could probably ask a consultant from either party, and they would say that increased turnout benefits their side,” consultant Derek Ryantold The Blast.
The earliest of early voting will skew toward the party with the most enthusiasm, and both sides agree that that’s currently the Democrats. The question, as early voting drags on, is whether Republicans can mobilize their supporters.
President Donald Trump is headed to Lubbock and Waco next week for appearances with Paxton. Those are two of the larger red areas that Ryan says he’ll be watching over the next two weeks.
“There’s an increased energy level amongst Democrats, and so they’ve been waiting for two years to show up to vote,” Ryan said. “There’s only a finite number of [previous Democratic primary voters] in the state, so once that pool starts to shrink, do the Republicans start to make up some of the ground there?”
Step 2: Watch for new voters.
One cohort some consultants are focusing on is young and first-time voters. Independent consultantSamuel Temple said the more political newcomers show up, the better for Democrats.
“There’s the old saying that stable times in the stock market help you sleep at night, but market volatility pays the bills,” Temple said. “The same thing is likely true here. If the Dems want to flip statewide seats beyond Talarico and maybe [railroad commissioner nomineeJon Rosenthal], they need to see a bunch of unknowns show up.”
Step 3: Don’t forget that high turnout has helped Republicans, too.
GOP consultant Ross Hunt said turnout will break all midterm election turnout records, but rejected the idea that analysts can glean which party benefits from high turnout. Like Ryan, Hunt said it will come down to each party mobilizing its base.
“Everyone always wants to know, ‘Well, if turnout is high, is that good for us?’” Hunt said. “There are some situations in which there’s an answer to that question, but usually the aggregate level of turnout or percentage level turnout really doesn’t bear directly on the outcome.”
Hunt noted that the number of Republicans in the state have increased significantly since 2018, the last heavily contested midterm.
“Where Republicans really are bleeding, at least at the Senate level of the ballot, is when it comes to those voters who do not participate in private party primaries but have tended to vote Republican in the past,” Hunt said. “Those voters are the ones who are really divided in their vote, whereas most of the Democratic-leaning independents are all lined up solidly for Talarico, so that’s really what’s putting Paxton in a bad position right now.”
Ryan said he’ll be watching for the 1.2 million previous Republican primary voters who sat out the March primary.
“Those people were probably getting 10 texts a day, multiple mail pieces and phone calls and seeing all sorts of streaming ads,” Ryan said. “The fact that they didn’t show up, it leaves you with the question of why didn’t they show up to vote in such a contested Republican primary, and do they still plan on voting Republican in this election.”
Step 4: Watch rural voters.
Another benchmark Ryan is watching is the rural turnout. Republicans need at least 25% of the overall turnout to come from counties outside the top 25 largest counties. Matt Angle,a Democratic strategist and the founder and director of the Lone Star Project, also cited a 25% rural vote share.
Angle said Democrats need the five largest counties to make up 40% of the turnout. And as far as demographics are concerned, Democrats need the Hispanic vote share to be around 25% and white voters under 60%.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
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