{"id":178984,"date":"2026-02-25T02:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T02:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/178984\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T02:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T02:38:16","slug":"travis-county-sees-high-early-voting-turnout-for-primaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/178984\/","title":{"rendered":"Travis County sees high early voting turnout for primaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Early voting turnout in Travis County \u2014 so far \u2014 is the highest it’s been for any primary election since 2008, according to data from the Texas Secretary of State<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nearly 9% of Travis County\u2019s more than 920,000 registered voters cast a ballot in the first week of early voting. Roughly 7% \u2014 or close to 63,000 people \u2014 have voted in the Democratic primary, and just over 16,000 people have cast a ballot in the Republican primary, according to the Travis County Clerk’s office. <\/p>\n

The turnout sails past almost every primary election in the past two decades \u2014 including presidential ones.<\/p>\n

In 2016, for example, when Texas\u2019 own Ted Cruz was on the ballot alongside Donald Trump, then Sen. Marco Rubio and then Ohio Gov. John Kasich, roughly the same percentage of registered Republican voters had hit the polls during the first week of early voting compared to this election. At the same time, less than 4% of registered Travis County Democrats, who were deciding between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, had voted.<\/p>\n

Voter turnout in primary elections is historically low in Texas<\/a>. However, this year’s surge in voter participation, particularly among Democrats, has taken off statewide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, told KERA News<\/a> that Democrats haven\u2019t had \u201cespecially interesting primaries\u201d or a real shot at winning statewide offices in previous elections. But this year is different.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Senate Democratic primary between U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Texas Rep. James Talarico has drawn national attention<\/a>. Both candidates have leveraged social media<\/a> to attract voters and have been featured in the gamut of national news outlets.<\/p>\n

“It certainly means that there’s more hope on their side,” Wilson told KERA News. “That for a variety of reasons, they’ve got a fighting chance to post some real gains in the fall.”<\/p>\n

As for Republican voters, turnout is also up \u2014 but not by as much.<\/p>\n

Travis County GOP Chair Jennifer Fleck said some voters in Travis County may still be undecided because there are several state offices without incumbents running.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of voters maybe don’t know how to vote,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Voter turnout is also up in neighboring Williamson and Hays counties. <\/p>\n

Nearly 25,000 Democrats and 17,941 Republicans have voted in Williamson County so far. More than 11,000 Democrats and close to 6,000 Republicans have voted in Hays County. <\/p>\n

Early voting runs through Feb. 27, and Election Day is March 3. A guide to help you make a plan to vote<\/a> in Travis County is available here. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early voting turnout in Travis County \u2014 so far \u2014 is the highest it’s been for any primary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[71883,132,134,133,71884,2135,3481,71885,68682,71886,70442,71887,71888],"class_list":{"0":"post-178984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-2025-primary-election","9":"tag-austin","10":"tag-austin-headlines","11":"tag-austin-news","12":"tag-how-to-vote-in-texas","13":"tag-james-talarico","14":"tag-jasmine-crockett","15":"tag-u-s-senate-race-texas","16":"tag-whats-on-my-ballot","17":"tag-when-is-election-day","18":"tag-where-to-vote-in-travis-county","19":"tag-who-is-james-talarico","20":"tag-who-is-jasmine-crockett"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}