Record runoff voter turnout
Harris County Democrats produced record turnout in Tuesday’s primary runoff election, easily outpacing prior election cycles even amid a recent escalation of the COVID-19 crisis.
The pandemic, in fact, may have helped boost turnout locally and across the state. Voters had five extra days to cast votes before Tuesday after Gov. Greg Abbott extended the early voting period, and in Harris County, absentee turnout nearly doubled from the March primary after Clerk Chris Hollins made the unprecedented move of sending mail ballot applications to all registered voters aged 65 and older.
More than 40 percent of Harris County’s runoff turnout came from people who voted early at one of the county’s polling sites, a record in recent history. Renée Cross, senior director of the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston, attributed that outcome largely to the longer early voting period.
“I think people felt there was a good chance, particularly in the heat of the summer in Houston, that there wouldn't be people swarming early vote locations,” Cross said. “So, people probably felt somewhat comfortable going to vote in person. And for quite awhile now, we've had greater numbers go out to vote early than actually on Election Day.”
Some 159,000 voters participated in the Harris County Democratic primary runoffs, more than the last four runoffs combined. This year’s Democratic primary, which featured a U.S. Senate runoff between former Air Force pilot M.J. Hegar and state Sen. Royce West, also surpassed the turnout of about 136,000 in the 2012 Harris County Republican primary, when conservative upstart Ted Cruz defeated then-lieutenant governor David Dewhurst.
Statewide, Republicans cast more than 1.1 million votes in that year’s runoff, which remains the high-water mark in Texas after about 956,000 Democrats turned out for Tuesday’s Senate contest, according to unofficial results from the Texas Secretary of State’s
Office. Still, that marks Texas Democrats’ second-highest runoff turnout yet, behind only the 1990 contest between Ann Richards and Jim Mattox.
After the results came in Tuesday evening, the state Democratic Party framed the turnout as a signal they are in position to deliver the state’s 38 electoral votes to presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden over President Donald Trump.
“In the middle of a pandemic, Texas Democrats showed we are ready to win with nearly a million Texans doing whatever it takes to have their voice heard,” party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement. “Texas is the biggest battleground state in the country. There is unprecedented energy across our great state, and Texas Democrats are putting in the hard work to turn Texas blue in November.”
The Texas Republican Party, meanwhile, did not have a statewide contest on Tuesday’s ballot, though the party was quick to declare that Hegar is heading into a general election battle against U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in a diminished state after narrowly defeating West, despite getting boosted by a flood of outside money.
"The heated Texas Senate Democrat Primary race the past few months exemplifies the disarray and lack of unity throughout the Democrat Party across Texas and the nation," Harris County Republican Party Chairman Paul Simpson said in a statement.
Some 65,000 voters cast ballots in the Harris County Republican primary runoff, which featured about a third as many races as the Democratic contest and no marquee statewide matchup. Statewide, both parties cast more than 2 million votes during the March primaries, with the Democratic primary slightly outpacing the Republican contest.
Though recent polls have shown Cornyn is starting with an advantage over Hegar, the state of the race between Biden and Trump appears far closer, with Biden polling within the margin of error or leading Trump in four of the five statewide polls conducted between June and July, according to RealClearPolitics.
Hollins, a Democrat who was appointed clerk in May, said he again plans to send mail ballot applications to every registered voter who is 65 and older for the general election. Democratic primary runoff voters mailed in more than 51,000 absentee ballots, compared to the roughly 28,000 who voted by mail in March.
Hollins said mailing out ballot applications unsolicited, which has never been done before in
Harris County, is aimed at protecting older voters from COVID-19, which has hospitalized and killed seniors at higher rates than other age groups. Also, Hollins said, expanding mail voting could allow people to cast ballots in person more efficiently.
“Voting by mail is certainly more convenient than standing in a five-hour-long line,” Hollins said. “The more people who vote by mail, the shorter those lines get for everybody else."
Republicans, including state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, have criticized the move as a waste of money.
Houston Democratic strategist Keir Murray said sending out mail ballot applications for the general election could swing the outcome in a narrowly decided contest, in part because Republicans no longer have such an overwhelming advantage over Democrats statewide.
“If the state is close, which there are a lot of indications that it will be, it could be tremendously important,” Murray said. “The problem for Republicans is that they're just running out of room for error here. You start driving up turnout, you can see how their margin could disappear very quickly, because there's been no growth in the rural parts of the state where Republicans dominate.”