Common Sense GayLet's be honest. If you've been on X this week, you've seen it. Charts of the Texas early vote with a big blue number on top and a caption that says Texas is in play. A lot of them trace back to one account, @theoelections, which showed up this cycle and became the darling of the Texas early vote crowd almost overnight.
On the first day of early voting, that account posted that Democratic primary voters held a D+8.4 lead over Republican primary voters, compared with R+10.9 four years ago, and called it a 19.3 point swing. That's the number people have been passing around ever since.
The data is real. The conclusion people are drawing from it isn't. Here's why.
Primary voters are a small slice of Texas
Texas doesn't register voters by party. So the only "party" label anyone can put on a Texan is which primary they voted in, if they voted in one at all.
In March, about 4.5 million Texans voted in a party primary. There are about 18.7 million registered voters in the state. That's roughly one in four. The other three out of four have no party label at all, not because they're independents, but because they skipped the primary. Most people do.
Come on. Someone who lives in a deep red precinct in Collin County and has voted Republican in every general election for 20 years, but never bothered with a March primary, is not an independent. They're a Republican who doesn't vote in primaries. Treat them as a coin flip and your numbers come out wrong.
The Democratic primary pool doubled in March
Here's the part almost nobody mentions. The comparison to four years ago isn't apples to apples, because the pool of people carrying a Democratic label got a lot bigger this year.
- 2022 Democratic primary: about 1.07 million votes
- 2026 Democratic primary: about 2.3 million votes
That's more than double, driven by a hot Senate primary between Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico. Republican primary turnout went from about 1.95 million to about 2.16 million.
So when twice as many Texans carry a "Democratic primary voter" tag, of course you find more of them in the early vote. That's not a 19 point swing in the electorate. That's a bigger label.
Even his own numbers say it's basically even
Through October 23, using that account's own site, here's how the roughly 3 million early voters break down by primary history:
- Democratic primaries only: 34.8%
- Republican primaries only: 34.3%
- Both parties: 3.3%
- No primary at all: 27.6%
That's a tie among primary voters, with more than a quarter of the early vote having no primary history.
And look at 2024. On that same site, early voters that year were 31% Republican primary only and 24% Democratic primary only, with almost 43% having no primary history. Trump still won Texas by nearly 14 points. Primary labels didn't come close to telling you the margin then, and they won't now.
What I look at instead
I get my early vote numbers from Election Data Guy, and I've followed him since 2024. Instead of only counting primary voters, he looks at how each county and precinct has actually voted in past elections and uses that split to estimate who's turning out. A voter with no primary history in a precinct that goes 75% Republican gets counted the way that precinct votes, not as a question mark.
I followed his model through the 2024 election, and he called Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina and Arizona for Trump. His one miss was Georgia, where he had Harris up 1.9 and Trump won by 2.2. I didn't see anyone else that close going into Election Day.
To be fair, he missed big on New Jersey in 2025, and people let me hear about it. He ran two models that year. The one he published leaned toward the polls, and his other one was within about 2 points. Off year governor races are their own animal. Midterms and presidential years have a lot more history behind them, and that's where this method works best.
What the better model says right now
As of this morning's pull, about 3.08 million Texans have voted early. Election Data Guy's estimate:
- Republicans: 55.4% (1,706,738)
- Democrats: 43.2% (1,331,978)
That's about R +12, and it has barely moved in three days. It's an estimate, not a state count, because Texas has no party registration. But it's built on how Texans actually vote, not on who showed up for a March primary.
Don't get comfortable
None of this means Republicans can coast. Democrats are energized, and their primary turnout proved it. The way you make sure the scary charts stay wrong is simple.
- Vote early. Early voting runs through Friday, October 30. Find your polling place.
- Bring your people. The free Abbott Impact app shows you which friends haven't voted yet.
- Check the receipts. I post the numbers every day on the early vote tracker.
Be serious. A primary is not a party, and a skipped primary is not an independent.
I'm your Common Sense Gay.
Sources: primary voter shares from theoelections early vote and generals compared, as of October 23. First day post from @theoelections on X. March 2026 primary turnout from Marfa Public Radio / Texas Newsroom. Registered voters from the Texas Secretary of State. Early vote estimate from the Election Data Guy early vote tracker, daily history on my tracker.