Nueces County Early Voting Breaks Its Midterm Records: About 78,200 Ballots, 35 Percent of Eligible Voters
Corpus Christi's county finished early voting at about 78,200 ballots — 35.09 percent of its roughly 223,000 eligible voters — beating its 2022 and 2018 midterm turnout by as much as six percentage points, the county clerk's data shows.
The early-vote surge was not only a big-city story. Nueces County — Corpus Christi's county, on the Coastal Bend — cast about 78,200 early ballots through Friday, October 30, representing 35.09 percent of about 223,000 eligible voters, according to data from the Nueces County Clerk's Office reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and read in full this cycle. That exceeded the county's early turnout in both the 2022 and 2018 midterms by as much as six percentage points; in 2018, the comparison midterm, early ballot-casting was about 61,500 ballots, 32.93 percent of about 205,400 eligible voters.
The people who run the count expected it. Bill Chriss, an independent political and legal historian, told the Caller-Times hours before the final numbers posted that passing 75,000 ballots would 'be a very high watermark for an election where the president is not on the ballot,' and that the increase showed 'the electorate is motivated to vote this cycle.' County Clerk Kara Sands attributed part of the uptick to her office's participation efforts and to the county's 20 vote centers, which let any Nueces voter cast a ballot at any location; voters, she said, 'know they can go in to vote and their vote's going to count. They trust the process.' Registered voters grew only modestly since 2024 — about 223,000 against about 218,800 — so the record is a turnout story, not a registration story.
Local experts pointed to the top of the ballot — the governor's race between Gov. Greg Abbott and state Rep. Gina Hinojosa and the Senate race between Attorney General Ken Paxton and state Rep. James Talarico — and to a Corpus Christi City Council fight sharpened by the dispute over the proposed Inner Harbor desalination plant, the Caller-Times reported. Corpus Christi has been a much-traveled campaign stop, including a second visit this year by President Donald Trump. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3; as the county's own reporting notes, the final day's turnout is usually dwarfed by the early vote that is now complete.
