Mark Felix for The Washington Post via Getty Images
- Early voters in Texas have already exceeded the total number of people statewide who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 — and the election is still 14 days away.
- That figure contributes to an immense wave of voter enthusiasm sweeping across the country.
- Trump won Texas by 9 percentage points in 2016 but is now polling within the margin of error.
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Early voting in Texas only started a week ago, but the Lone Star State already leads the US in turnout.
In fact, more Texans have now cast their ballots for the upcoming presidential election than the total number of people in the state who voted for then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016.
That’s roughly 4.7 million people who have voted ahead of Election Day, just over the 4.68 million votes previously cast for Trump, who won the state by 9 percentage points.
This figure contributes to an immense wave of voter enthusiasm sweeping across the country, which is on track to shatter records for early turnout. With two weeks left until Nov. 3, at least 35 million people so far have voted by mail or in person, according to data collected by the US Elections Project. That number represents nearly a quarter of the total votes counted in the 2016 presidential election.
Similar to Texas, early voters in key battleground states such as Florida, Wisconsin, and Michigan have also exceeded 20% of their total 2016 turnout.
Democrats hope these strides will translate into an election win for former Vice President Joe Biden, and initial evidence is leaning in their favor. A closer look at the numbers in states that provide party registration information reveals that about 53% of early votes have been cast by Democrats compared to 25% by Republicans, according to the US Elections Project.
Texas possesses 38 electoral votes and has voted for a Republican president in 11 of the last 12 elections. If Texas goes to Biden in November, the presidential race is effectively over.
Decision Desk HQ, an election forecasting company, ran 140,605 simulations where Trump emerged victorious — he won Texas in 99% of those scenarios. So a Texas victory is not a preference for the Trump campaign — it's a necessity.
Recent polling by Morning Consult between October 2 and October 11 shows Trump leading Biden in Texas by just 2 percentage points — well within the margin of error. According to DDHQ, Trump has a 61.3% chance of winning the state.
Originally, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott scheduled early voting to begin on October 19, but he signed off on starting on October 13 instead so as to accommodate public safety standards amid the coronavirus pandemic. Early voting ends on October 30.
Yet Abbott, along with other Republicans who voiced concerns of possible voter fraud, successfully resisted a push by Democratic state leaders to expand Texas' strict eligibility requirements for mail-in voting. A federal appeals court also blocked the Democrats' effort in September.
The governor also issued an order that limits every Texas county to only one ballot drop box. A judge recently overrode that order, but drop box availability continues to be a hotly contested issue in Texas.
Due to the ongoing legal saga, the Harris County District Clerk noted that the county has no plans to re-open the 11 closed drop boxes and will continue to follow the governor's order. Houston, the most populous city in Texas and the fourth-largest city in the US, is located in Harris County — meaning some 2.3 million people rely on a single drop box.
Still, despite court rulings that may stymie easy voting, Texas is on pace for a record turnout in the 2020 election.
