EL PASO, TEXAS (KFOX14/CBS4) — El Paso County saw nearly 18% of voters turn out for this year’s primary election, a significant jump for a local election that a political science expert says appears to be driven largely by economic concerns.
According to the El Paso County Elections website, the unofficial voter turnout results showed about 18% or nearly 93,000 El Paso County residents cast their ballots in this election, a jump from the 2024 primary election, which saw about 11 % voter turnout.
Speaking to KFOX14/CBS4 on Wednesday following Election Day, Abha Singh, a political science expert at the University of Texas at El Paso, attributed the increase in this year’s voter turnout to economic concerns.
“And there is hardly any relief in sight, and inflation is still a problem in a lot of people’s minds. And so people are actually more concerned about those pocketbook issues than anything else right now,” Singh said.
Singh said economic frustration may be reshaping local and state races, pointing to the primary losses of two county commissioner incumbents: David Stout in Precinct 2 and Sergio Coronado in Precinct 4.
Singh described those defeats as a sign that anti-incumbent sentiment is gaining traction, adding that higher-than-expected turnout can disrupt campaign expectations and make results harder to forecast.
“And then people show up in large number like 18%. And then of course it’s hard to predict in what kind of outcome there is going to be,” Singh said.
RECOMMENDED: Election Day: El Paso County Commissioner Precinct 2 March 2026 primary
Comment with Bubbles
BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT
Sign up to receive the top interesting stories from in and around our community once daily in your inbox.