High early voting turnout across Texas is setting the stage for a consequential Election Day, with some of the state’s most competitive races in years heading into their final stretch.<\/p>\n
Democratic primary voters have outnumbered Republican primary voters during early voting, while the Dallas-Fort Worth area continues to play a major role in statewide elections, accounting for roughly a third of votes cast in Texas.<\/p>\n
Candidates made their final pitches to voters across the state Saturday.<\/p>\n
At a rally in Fort Bend County, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico rallied supporters ahead of Election Day.<\/p>\n
“No one ever thought that we would get this close, and we understand what the stakes are,” Hinojosa said.<\/p>\n
Elon Musk has donated roughly $200 million to Republicans as Democrats seek to make gains in Texas. Hinojosa has also filed a lawsuit seeking the release of emails between Gov. Greg Abbott and Musk.<\/p>\n
“It is the fight to decide: Is this going to be a Texas that is by and for the people? Or is this the billionaires’ world and we just live here?” Hinojosa said.<\/p>\n
Across the state in Fort Worth, Republican U.S. Senate candidate and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton held a rally Saturday, where he touted his record as the state’s top law enforcement official.<\/p>\n
“I’ve taken on the companies putting toxins in our food, targeting our kids with deceptive advertising and putting chemicals in everything from your groceries to your clothing,” Paxton said.<\/p>\n
Paxton also promoted his “Protecting the Texas Promise Plan,” which includes proposals for tax breaks tied to new homeowners, medical expenses and healthy living.<\/p>\n
“Talk to your friends. Talk to your family. Tell them the difference between the parties,” Paxton told supporters.<\/p>\n
Political observers expect Texas could break a midterm turnout record this year, with a strong Election Day showing anticipated in rural counties. Overall turnout could surpass 10 million voters out of roughly 19 million registered voters.<\/p>\n
According to data researcher Ross Hunt of Hunt Research, about 54% of voters so far are women. The early vote is about 53% white, 25% Hispanic and 10% Black. Younger voters are also turning out, with about 30% of those who have voted under the age of 45.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"High early voting turnout across Texas is setting the stage for a consequential Election Day, with some of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,8817],"class_list":["post-483007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-lone-star-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483007","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=483007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}