Texas Early Voting Passes 7.7 Million in Sunday's Preliminary Count, 40.5 Percent of Registered Voters, the Texas Tribune Reports
Preliminary state data as of Sunday morning put Texas's early vote above 7.7 million ballots — 40.5 percent of the state's 19.04 million registered voters, passing the modern midterm high-water mark set in 2018 — with the unofficial Secretary of State total reported by KHOU at 7.615 million including mail ballots.
Texas's record early vote kept growing on paper Sunday as the last county reports arrived. The Texas Tribune, citing preliminary state data as of Sunday morning, put the count above 7.7 million ballots, or 40.5 percent of registered voters — a turnout rate that passes the modern-day midterm high-water mark set in 2018, the Tribune reported. KHOU's account of the unofficial Secretary of State totals put the figure at 7.615 million, including in-person early votes and mail ballots; both figures are unofficial, counties report their own totals, and the two counts reflect different reporting moments, so the desk carries each under its own source rather than blending them. Either way, the scale is settled: the early vote alone is close to the 8,102,908 Texans who voted in the entire 2022 general election, Election Day included, and far above the 5.49 million who voted early in 2022.
The Houston area shows the surge's shape. Harris County's early vote rose 34.2 percent from 2022, from 750,116 to 1,006,505, according to state numbers as of 8 a.m. Sunday reported by KHOU; Fort Bend rose 46.3 percent to 273,846, Brazoria 44.4 percent to 117,056, and Montgomery 37.0 percent to 191,878. Texas also simply has more voters: 19.04 million registered this year, up from 17.67 million in 2022, per state figures carried in the account. Rice University political scientist Mark Jones told the Tribune: "We're not going to hit presidential levels, but this is definitely high turnout. The question that is still out there is, and this happens every time that we try to interpret early voting numbers: How many votes are actually still out there?" Texans cast 9 million early ballots in the 2024 presidential election, per the Tribune.
What remains is Tuesday. The Secretary of State's VoteTexas account put the early total at more than 7.5 million with some counties still finalizing reporting, and urged the rest to turn out on November 3, when polling locations statewide are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The preliminary totals say nothing about who is winning — Texas voters do not register by party, and the count is a turnout figure, not a result. This file updates the station's Election Lab closing count (SQ-20261101-038) with Sunday's preliminary state figures; the certified picture waits on Tuesday.
