2026 Texas Primary Analysis
The Texas Secretary of State has posted its final pre-certified election results from their 2026 state primaries. The numbers may change slightly as election officials continue to adjudicate a few provisional and mail ballots, but enough data has been reported to draw some solid conclusions.
Turnout Increased Dramatically From 2018,
The number of people who participated in either the Democratic or Republican primary increased 1.9 million or 73% from the 2018 election. Texas is a fast growing state. To account for population changes, the turnout rate among those eligible to vote (aka VEP or voting-eligible population) increased 7.4 percentage points. This includes eligible persons who are not registered to vote and is thus a more consistent denominator than registration which can be subject to changes in voter registration administration practices, such as purging.
I use the 2018 midterm primary as a comparison point since the 2018 general election’s turnout rate of 50% was the highest since 1914. The 2018 election thus serves as a highwater benchmark for comparison.
(The 2026 primary election is not the highest Texas primary election turnout rate in history. During the Jim Crow era of one-party Democratic control of the South primary turnout exceeded general election turnout since general election winners were selected in primaries.)
The 2018 election is not a perfect comparison point for turnout. Primary elections tend to be idiosyncratic especially with respect to electoral competitiveness, with more competitive elections drawing more voters.
In 2018 the Democratic Party had competitive statewide contests, perhaps most notably their governor election went to a run-off, while Republican candidates breezed their way to victory.
In 2026, both parties experienced competitive statewide primary contests, particularly for US Senate.
I would expect the larger increase in Republican electoral competition to result in a larger turnout increase in their primary. That is not the case. Republican 2026 primary turnout in raw vote terms increased by 616,171 votes, or 40% from 2018, while Democratic primary turnout increased by 1,268,912 or 122% from 2018.
I have two takeaways from these statistics:
Overall voter engagement is up from 2018. If this level of engagement persists, the 2026 midterm election will exceed 2018’s turnout rate.
Democrats’ voting enthusiasm is higher than Republicans’. This adds to a mountain of evidence showing the same in polling, in special elections, and the 2025 state elections.
Whether these dynamics continue through to November remains to be seen. At the moment with a unpopular war, a wobbling economy, unpopular domestic immigration policies weighing down an issue Republicans used to own, and more weighing down Donald Trump and his party it is difficult to see how the electoral environment changes in six months barring a catastrophic event.
There is an important implication for polling. With exceedingly low response rates, pollsters must weight their midterm election polls to what they think the 2026 electorate will look like. We are in a 2018 midterm election environment, if not better for Democrats. It would be easy to place a thumb on the weighting scale by weighting a poll to match the 2022 or (worse) the 2024 electorate.
Early Voting Predictive, Again
A previously posted about Texas early voting. Here are the final statistics reported by the Texas Secretary of State. Recall, in 2018 only fifteen largest — and more Democratic — counties reported early voting statistics, so in addition to the statewide statistics, I compare 2018 and 2026 early voting for these fifteen reporting counties.
Statewide, 238,440 more Democrats voted early in their primary than Republicans. The Democrats increase in engagement was pronounced among the fifteen 2018 reporting counties. Democratic early voting increased by 137% from 2018, while Republicans increased 47%.
The early voting increases are similar to the overall turnout increases of 122% and 40%, respectively. Thus, early voting is (yet again) predictive of Election Day.
Another point of interest is that Election Day was not a particularly strong Red Wave day. In the Democratic primary 238,440 more voted early than in the Republican primary. If we subtract the early voters from the overall results, 92,358 more Republican primary voters participated on Election Day than Democrats. This was insufficient to overcome the lead Democrats built among early voters. It will remain to be seen if this dynamic continues in November.
Among the fifteen comparison counties there is a notable decrease in mail balloting. Texas is an excuse-required mail ballot state, with a permitted excused being age sixty-five or older. As such, even in 2018 more Republicans voted by mail within the fifteen reporting counties. Since 2018, Texas Republicans adopted more burdensome mail ballot rules in response to Donald Trump’s unfounded allegations of mail ballot fraud. Within the fifteen reporting counties, use of mail ballots in the Republican primary decreased by 53,326 while Democratic use decreased 44,565. This occurred even as in-person early voting surged.
Texas Republicans may have disproportionately burdened some of their supporters with their new mail ballot rules. If the general election produces an exceptionally close contest, Republicans may have themselves to blame if they lose a recount.
To reiterate, there are many caveats to this analysis. Elections happen at a point in time and political conditions can change, as they have already done since the 2024 presidential election. Primary elections have much lower turnout than general elections, and they tend to favor participation among the most politically engaged. We need polling to help inform us how voters who skip primaries but vote in general elections may vote in November.
These analyses can help inform us as another piece of evidence to consume, but we continue to need more information to predict what will happen in November. We’ll have more primary elections, special elections, polling, and as we draw close early voting for the November election. That said, these primary data should not be dismissed, especially by pollsters that need to forecast what the 2026 electorate will be to better weight their polls. A picture is coming into focus of a high turnout 2026 general election rivaling, if not exceeding, the 2018 midterm election.