The 12-day early-voting period ends Friday, and while voting could always pick up, the numbers have prompted both sides to reconsider their expectations.
faced a strong challenge from then-U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, in what was the first midterm election since Donald Trump became president. The turnout rate leaped to 53%, nearly 20 percentage points higher than it was four years earlier.’s campaign — had projected a total turnout of at least 10 million, which would be 57% turnout. But after the first week of early voting, they are not as sure, eyeing overall turnout that could fall between 8 and 10 million.
At the same time, he acknowledged in an interview that his fate depends more on who votes, not necessarily on how many people vote. Democratic Party leaders say they’re worried about a new series of voting restrictions that Abbott signed into law last year. Among other things, the law mandates more stringent identification requirements for mail voting.
“West Texas — the Amarillo, Midland-Odessa [areas] — turnout has been very light,” Patrick told Lubbock radio host Chad Hasty. “Lubbock’s been better, but Abilene, Wichita Falls — all points in between — it’s been lighter than we’d like to see, so we just need to get people to the polls.” The data suggests people are listening. Mail ballots were down sharply. So far, in the top 30 counties, 201,919 people have voted by mail. At this point in 2018, 324,840 people had returned their mail ballot. And Ryan said his analysis shows that mail voters so far are more Democratic-leaning than Republican-leaning, a reversal from 2018 and prior midterms.
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