With just four days until Election day, Texans have cast more ballots through early and mail-in voting than the entire turnout for the 2016 election.
The 2020 election, upended by the coronavirus pandemic, has already brought out over 9 million voters, compared to 2016, which had just over 8.9 million ballots cast in the state.
In many places, the public health concerns of the pandemic have expanded voting options, giving voters the chance to vote by mail or cast their ballot early to avoid long lines and crowds that may come with waiting until Election Day.
Election forecasters at the Cook Political Report and NBC News have recently moved Texas as a “Toss Up” state for this year’s election.
In 2016, President Trump comfortably won Texas by more than 800,000 votes.
Though once considered reliably Republican territory, Texas has been moving shifting away from that reputation, most notably seen in the close Senate race in 2018 between Sen. Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke, who later ran an unsuccessful bid for president early in the Democratic primary.
Part of the reasoning for Texas’s growing blue presence is record-high turnout among younger voters.
“Young people really flexed their muscles two years ago, and once they vote they tend to vote again,” Charlie Bonner, communications director for MOVE Texas, a nonpartisan group that seeks to get more young people to vote, told the Los Angeles Times. “This is a massive voting bloc, and after this election we are going to have to have policy solutions that pay attention to them.”
Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said there’s a diverse group of voters across several different demographics casting their ballots early, and the party is confident they can flip the state in their direction.
“Texas voters are making their voices heard at unprecedented rates,” Hinojosa said in a statement. “Texans are proving that they will crawl through broken glass in the battle for the soul of our nation.”
Polls have gone back and forth, showing both Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden leading slightly in recent days. However, the majority of polls predict that the two are neck and neck for the state just days out from Nov. 3.
Texas hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter won the state over Republican Gerald Ford in 1976.
