Democrats enjoyed high voter turnout in Tuesday’s primary elections, signaling an optimistic outlook for the party heading into November.
The development comes after North Carolina, Texas, and Arkansas led the country in holding primary elections on Tuesday. In North Carolina, Democrats easily bested GOP turnout in the state’s most closely watched campaign. Under 626,000 votes were cast for Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley and other GOP primary contenders, compared to upwards of 825,000 for former Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) and the rest of the Democratic challengers.
Democrats lead in North Carolina
Overall, more North Carolinians voted early this year than in the past two midterm primary elections, with about 9% of the state’s registered voters, or 700,000, making their way to the polls in the two-and-a-half weeks before Election Day, according to elections data reviewed by Carolina Public Press. The state’s early voting turnout was about 24% higher than at the same point of the 2022 midterm primaries, and even higher than the 2024 presidential primaries, Western Carolina University political scientist Chris Cooper told WTVD.
Through Monday morning, over 296,000 Democrats cast early ballots, roughly 200,000 Republicans, and around 215,000 unaffiliated voters, with 55% of those voters requesting Democratic ballots, according to North Carolina State Board of Elections data. Cooper said the development bodes well for Democrats, but warned against reading too much into the results.
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“There’s a way to look at these data and say, ‘Holy cow, turnout’s way up.’ And that’s correct — if you just count raw votes, it’s extraordinary how much turnout is up,” he told NC Newsline. “But there’s more people who live in the state now than in 2022, and there’s more registered voters.”
“The Republicans seem to be less motivated to come out than Democrats, and that holds no matter how you calculate it … In general, what this is telling me is [that] people are not sitting this one out, particularly Democrats,” he added.
Texas gives Democrats a boost – with a caveat
In Texas, Democrats turned out in unusually high numbers during early voting, including 400,000 people who had never before voted in a Democratic primary, according to early-voting data obtained by the New York Times and analyzed by Republican political consultant Derek Ryan. Early voting totals for this year’s primaries show Democratic voter turnout 1 percentage point higher than Republican turnout, defying norms, according to an Axios analysis.
The Democratic turnout in the Texas primaries outpacing the GOP is a “code red alert for Texas Republicans,” pollster Ross Hunt said in a Sunday memo shared with the Hill, signaling Republicans “will need to do everything right this fall.”
In the tense, three-way GOP Senate primary race, more than 2.3 million Texans voted, similar to the 2024 Republican presidential primary turnout and slightly up from 2020. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Attorney General Ken Paxton are headed into a runoff election after no candidate declared an outright victory.
In El Paso County, one of the largest in West Texas, GOP voter turnout was up, but Democrats held an even wider advantage. Democratic turnout in the county this year was 75% higher than in the last midterm primary in 2022, and higher than all years except 2008 and 2020. Republican turnout was up 33% from 2022, the second-highest ever.
While Democrats have cause to celebrate voter turnout, some experts warned against overemphasizing the results.
“One should be careful not to overread that outcome. Texas does not have partisan registration, so voters tend to swarm toward the party that has the more interesting top-of-the-ticket race,” Senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center Henry Olsen wrote in a Washington Post op-ed.
“In 2020, for example, Democrats had an important presidential contest while President Donald Trump was cruising to renomination. Democratic turnout exceeded Republican turnout in the March primaries in Texas, as voters clearly decided that choosing between then-former vice president Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) was more consequential than casting another vote for Trump. That certainly didn’t mean Trump was in trouble in the state,” Olsen continued. “On Tuesday night, the fact that the Republican Senate contest was sure to go to a runoff while the Democratic one featured two strong but stylistically opposite candidates probably had a similar effect on voter choice.”
Arkansas breaks turnout records
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In Arkansas, Secretary of State Cole Jester said that early-voting turnout is on track to be record-breaking for the state’s midterm primary. Jester projected Arkansas would significantly surpass the previous 2022 record of 208,528 registered voters casting ballots before Election Day.
“This is proof that we can have secure elections that are easy to participate in. This past year, we brought Arkansas to No. 1 in election security, and we are still breaking turnout records for the early vote,” he said Monday.