Texas, the nation’s second largest state, held the nation’s first primary yesterday. There were no great surprises in the results: the two governor candidates, Republican Greg Abbott and Democrat Wendy Davis, had no serious opposition, and Republican Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Pete Sessions were renominated over opponents some labeled Tea Partiers by wide margins.

Texas does not have party registration: Any voter can vote in either party’s primary. That means that primary turnout gives some indication of the balance between the parties. Some national Democrats have embarked on a project to “paint Texas blue” — to make the Democratic party competitive in a state which has elected only Republican senators and governors starting in 1994 and which has generally been counted as safely Republican in presidential races going back to 1980 (although it was close in 1992 and 1996 when Republicans were losing nationally to Bill Clinton). Yesterday’s results suggest that the “paint Texas blue” project has not made much headway. I’ve listed below the Republican and Democratic turnout in gubernatorial primaries going back to 1982; I’ve rounded off each number to the nearest thousand and indicated the Republican percentage of the two-party primary vote.