More Texans voted in the Tuesday runoff elections than in any previous runoff election in state history.

The red-hot GOP Senate primary, combined with a slate of statewide Democratic races, lured 1.9 million voters to the polls for what are typically tragically low-turnout affairs.

The number shattered the previous voter turnout record in 2022 when both parties had competitive statewide runoff battles. Just over 1.4 million Texans voted in that race.

The Republican primary runoff on Tuesday was the main driver of the record turnout. Almost 1.4 million people voted in the Republican battle between Sen. John Cornyn and Ken Paxton. That surpassed the previous record of 1.1 million in 2012, the battle that launched U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s career in politics. Cruz knocked off then-Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to secure his first GOP nomination for U.S. Senate.

For Democrats, who had statewide battles for attorney general and lieutenant governor on Tuesday, over 550,000 people voted, well short of their previous record set in 2020 when Democrat MJ Hegar defeated State Sen. Royce West for the U.S. Senate nomination. Nearly 1 million voters cast ballots in that race. 

Still, despite the record-breaking numbers, the turnout was just 10% of the state’s 18.7 million voters. That is vastly lower than the 24% turnout in the March primaries and the 61% of voters who cast ballots in the November 2024 presidential election.

All voters are eligible to vote in the primary runoffs, but still, few do. Texas doesn’t register voters by party, allowing anyone to vote in the primaries and runoffs regardless of past voter history. The only prohibition is that voters who cast a ballot in one primary in March couldn’t switch in May to the other party’s primary runoff.

The time of the late-May election is likely one of the big culprits behind low turnout in runoffs. Before 2012, Texas runoff elections were held in April, the month after the initial primary elections. But the state pushed them to late May so there was enough time to send and receive overseas and military ballots.