Texas Republicans Sound Alarm About Early Vote, Pointing to Low Turnout Across West Texas

Republican candidates in Texas are again sounding alarms about low early vote turnout in deep-red parts of the state as urban areas friendly to Democrats are turning out at near-presidential year levels. One statewide GOP candidate warned Tuesday that Republicans are “getting beat bad.”So far, more than 4.9 million Texans have cast ballots ahead of the midterm elections next week — ahead of turnout in the 2022 midterms but behind turnout at the same point in 2018, when Democrats came within three points of unseating Senator Ted Cruz. Texas does not report partisan turnout in the early vote, though highly respected data analytics firms are able to model what kinds of voters are turning out. According to the firm VoteHub which models the electorate based on factors like age, race, income, and voting history, the Democratic Senate nominee, state representative James Talarico, is favored to win his race by just under two points based on current turnout models. National Republicans are clearly worried not just about the U.S. Senate race, but also the race for governor and railroad commissioner, the position which oversees regulation of the state’s energy industry. President Trump and Vice President Vance have visited Texas more than any other state in the nation ahead of the midterms, and even held the Republican Party’s first-ever midterm convention in the state. Mr. Trump rallied with GOP candidates in Texas on Tuesday night, where one Republican offered a stark warning. “We’re not doing good right now in the early vote. We’re getting beat by the leftists. We’re getting beat bad.” the comptroller of Texas, Don Huffines, who was appointed over the summer and is now running for a full term, said at the rally. “You need to be concerned, because it’s a fact.”The nominee for railroad commissioner, Bo French, has been in hot water in recent weeks after sending out a racist post on X featuring a photo of many University of Texas as Austin fans, some of whom appeared to be of South Asian descent. Mr. French wrote in the post that levels of immigration to America are “far worse” than he had imagined, even though some of those students in the photo were born in the United States.In a series of X posts on Tuesday, Mr. French made clear that he is nervous about Republicans’ chances next week. He pointed to surging turnout in the Austin area — Mr. Talarico’s home — which is nearing levels of a presidential election year. In deep-red West Texas, however, Republicans have not been showing up at a sufficient rate. “On Saturday I told you Austin was outvoting West Texas. The gap got WIDER. Travis County: 27.0% of voters have voted. Ector: 12.9%. Midland: 18.6%. Andrews: 14.9%. Winkler: 5.0%. Permian Basin, you’ve got until Friday. Fix it. We can’t afford to surrender to a single Marxist,” Mr. French wrote Tuesday. “Austin is showing up for him,” he wrote in another post, referring to Mr. Talarico. “Answer him at the ballot box.”The lieutenant governor of the state, Dan Patrick, who is also locked in a tight race, said over the weekend that there were about 600,000 rural Texas voters — a heavily Republican group — who had not yet cast ballots. He said at the time that Republicans had to close that gap by the end of early voting at the end of this week. In a video put out on Tuesday, Mr. Patrick made clear that he does not yet see that happening. “No more waiting! Vote today,” Mr. Patrick said in the direct-to-camera video. “Blue cities and counties are turning out in big numbers. Rural Texas must answer with a surge of our own.”“Victory is in the hands of hardworking patriots across rural Texas,” he said.

Texas Republicans Sound Alarm About Early Vote, Pointing to Low Turnout Across West Texas

Texas Republicans Sound Alarm About Early Vote, Pointing to Low Turnout Across West Texas

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