Texas Dems Turn Up on Election Day

Here’s that strange feeling again – hope. After Tuesday’s primary election, you have to have at least a little.

First of all, there are the voting numbers. As Tuesday dawned, the Houston Chronicle reported that Texas had shattered the previous record for the number of people voting early in a primary. All told, 2.5 million people voted early, an increase of 500,000 from the next highest number. But the relevant detail for progressives was how many of those new votes had been cast for Democrats. According to the Houston Chronicle’s report, 1.4 million Texans voted early in the Democratic primary, a jump of 119% compared to 2022. Republican voting was up, too, but much more modestly – only 13%. 

That meant that the overwhelming majority of the 500,000 new votes were for Democrats. As Austin’s U.S. House Rep. Greg Casar pointed out in a CNN interview late Tuesday night, Beto O’Rourke came within 200,000 votes of beating Ted Cruz in 2018. “You could see a huge swing here in November,” Casar said. 

Casar spoke from the headquarters of Senate candidate James Talarico, as supporters waited for the results of his race with U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Both the Talarico/Crockett contest and the Republican primary battle between Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton led media coverage across the country Tuesday. (Keep reading for more on the Talarico/Crockett matchup.) 

The other big stories were, again, voter participation and the messiness of the election. Though final numbers weren’t available as the Chronicle went to press, long lines to vote were reported in Houston, Dallas, and here in Central Texas. The voter uprising has Democrats elated and Republicans worried. Gina Hinojosa, who won her primary easily and will now go head-to-head with Gov. Greg Abbott in the general election, said the numbers show that Texans are “tired of paying the Greg Abbott Corruption Tax.” Sen. Cornyn called the numbers a warning sign while campaigning in Schertz on Monday, saying, “I think Democrats see an opportunity.”   

What people aren’t talking about, for today anyway, is the connection between the higher voter turnout and the political crisis the nation finds itself in. It has now been 10 years since Donald Trump wrested control of the GOP from traditional Republicans like Cornyn, winning his first primaries in New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina in February of 2016. A decade of daily assaults on decency, democracy, people of color, and the country’s founding principles seems to be reaching a crescendo.  

But hope can make you think about the future instead of the past. As a Texas Democratic Party press release on Wednesday morning put it, “We are united, we are energized, and we are ready for the general election.”

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