Texas voter turnout falls in 2024 election despite record number of registrations

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More Texans have registered to vote in the November 2024 election than ever before, but voter turnout lagged behind the last presidential race, especially in the state’s most populous urban counties, where Democrats had hoped to dominate by focusing on issues such as abortion and the state of democracy .

A record 18.6 million Texans are registered to vote in the election, according to state data. Some 11.3 million people, or 61% of registered voters, voted in the general election, according to preliminary unofficial data.

While the total number of Texans voting this year is comparable to the 2020 total, it represents a nearly 6 percentage point drop in turnout compared to four years ago.

The drop in turnout this year has been most dramatic in large blue Texas counties including Harris, Bexar and Dallas, where Democratic front-runners including Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Rep. Colin Allred were expected to win landslides. Harris performed the worst in those counties, beating Trump in Harris County by a modest 5 points, a sharp drop from 2020, when President Joe Biden beat Trump by 13 points. Allred did slightly better, but not enough to prevent higher Republican turnout in fast-growing red counties, including Montgomery and Collin.

Participation in early voting also refused this year. About 9 million Texans voted early in person or returned absentee ballots by Nov. 1, compared with 9.7 million voters who did so in 2020.

Only a small fraction of the state’s 254 counties saw an increase in voting participation. Among them were Wichita, Victoria and Erath, all of whom were staunch Republicans.

Political scientists said 2020 may have been an anomaly as the COVID-19 pandemic galvanized voters and some Texas counties temporarily lowered voting barriers this year. Texas offered three weeks of early voting in 2020, up from two weeks in 2024, and some counties also allow absentee voting.

In 2016 and 2012, about 59% of registered voters turned out, an increase from this year.

“We should be careful about making direct comparisons to 2020 because that election was very unusual,” said Joshua Blank, research director for the Texas Politics Project. “It’s easy to look at this and say we have lower turnout, but given that the state is known as a bastion of low turnout, another way to look at this is as a continuation of higher than traditional turnout.”

Blank added that increasing the number of registered voters does not automatically lead to increased turnout. Some people register to vote when renewing their driver’s license and don’t necessarily intend to vote. Others decide not to vote because of complex state voter laws.

Voter laws in Texas are among the strictest in the country. The state’s voter ID requirements are more stringent than other states, which only require a signature to vote. And Texas allows voting by mail only to a small group of voters, unlike other states that allow universal mail-in ballots.

Confusion over a GOP-backed voting law that requires voters to provide a state identification number on their mail-in ballot applications also may have prevented some Texans from voting, experts say.

The increase in registered voters in the state comes amid an explosive population boom in suburban areas around Houston, Dallas and Austin. Democrats hoped growth in these areas would propel their candidates to victory and help turn the state blue.

But Democrats face an uphill battle when it comes to motivating voters to turn out, said University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus.

“We’re a one-party state, and there’s a perception that for the party not in power, their votes don’t count,” Rottinghaus said. “A lot of people take it personally and don’t vote as a result.”

In Collin County, one of the state’s fastest-growing areas north of Dallas, the GOP engaged voters by placing itself at the center of nonpolitical events, including car shows and beer pong competitions, said GOP Chair Shelby Williams. . These efforts helped establish the party’s presence and resulted in relatively high voter turnout. About 68.5% of registered voters cast ballots in Collin County, down from 2020’s 75.7% turnout but significantly higher than the 2024 turnout total.

“We have to get countless Republicans involved who don’t yet know they’re Republicans,” Williams said. “It’s important to get beyond our own political echo chamber and get out into the community with swing voters and promote the Republican brand.”

Texas has one of the youngest populations in the country, with a median age of 35. Young voters tend to support Democrats, but Trump did as well as Harris among Texas voters ages 18 to 29, according to exit polling from Edison Research.

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