Early voting numbers in Texas GOP Senate runoff offer mixed clues

AUSTIN – For Texas political junkies, the early voting numbers in the Senate runoff offer conflicting clues about whether John Cornyn or Ken Paxton holds the edge heading into Tuesday’s election.

Early voting ended Friday across the state, and the county-by-county results play into a key question: Can Cornyn’s relative strength in major metro areas offset Paxton’s dominance in smaller conservative counties?

That regional divide contributed to Cornyn finishing first in the March primary, though not with enough support to avoid a runoff against Paxton.

As expected, early voting collapsed for the runoff.

Based on a near-final count from the secretary of state’s office, about 820,000 Texans cast Republican ballots by mail and in person versus 1.3 million in the primary.

A layer of uncertainty hangs over the turnout numbers because, unlike the March primary, the runoff featured only a five-day early voting window with no weekend voting.

Now that the bulk of the early runoff votes are in, the statewide patterns reveal a mixed political picture. 

For example, some of Cornyn’s best metro strongholds held up comparatively well even as smaller conservative areas backing Paxton posted higher turnout rates. Among the notable dynamics identified by The Dallas Morning News:

• In Dallas County, where Cornyn beat Paxton by 18 percentage points in March, 45,974 Republicans voted early in the runoff compared with 64,948 in the March primary, a retention rate of roughly 70%.
• Travis County, where Cornyn routed Paxton by 24 percentage points, kept nearly 80% of its GOP early vote from the primary.
• Tarrant County, another top-performing Cornyn area, held onto about 67% of its early primary vote, despite the steep statewide dropoff in runoff participation.
• Harris County, where Cornyn edged Paxton by a single percentage point, retained 76% of its vote from the first round.

Matt Mackowiak, a senior adviser for the Cornyn campaign, said he expects a close race and that Paxton’s campaign is hoping for a smaller runoff electorate.

“Unlike Ken Paxton, we want high turnout,” Mackowiak said. “We are working to turn out as many Republicans as possible.”

Nick Maddux, a spokesman for Paxton’s campaign, declined to comment. 

Some Paxton-friendly suburban and exurban counties are seeing sharper declines from March, including:

• Collin County, which Paxton narrowly carried in the primary, retained less than 60% of its March early vote.
• Montgomery County, one of Paxton’s strongest counties in March, was at about the same level. Paxton beat Cornyn there by 27 percentage points in March. 
• Galveston County, which Paxton won by 6 percentage points, maintained nearly 68% of its GOP early vote from the primary.

At the same time, those counties are posting higher overall turnout rates in the runoff than some of Cornyn’s biggest metro areas, a trend that could benefit Paxton if it continues through Election Day.

Republican turnout among registered voters in Collin, Montgomery and Galveston counties was around 6% by the end of early voting, with Montgomery topping 6.4%. Dallas and Travis counties, two of Cornyn’s best March counties, were closer to 3%.

Cornyn showed somewhat stronger numbers in Tarrant and Denton counties, where GOP turnout among registered voters was running closer to 5% and 6%, respectively.

Another wildcard is whether supporters of Rep. Wesley Hunt, who finished third in the primary, will break toward Cornyn or Paxton in the runoff.

The winner of the will face Democratic state Rep. James Talarico of Austin.