Texans took to the polls this year to elect Democrats in every statewide race on the ballot this year. The voters turned out in numbers similar to the 2018 midterms.
A week before Election Day, more than a quarter of registered voters statewide voted in person or by mail. That number was only 21% in 2022 and 24% in 2018, according to state data.
North Texas counties also had high engagement during this year’s elections. Tallies show more than half of registered voters in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties cast ballots in the November election.
“They blamed all the special election,” Keith Gaddie, a political science professor at TCU, told KERA on NTX Now. “It was high turnout at the time, it was high turnout now. It replicated itself, and it rippled down the ticket. The first time we had that Texas was going to change was in northwest Tarrant.”
The turnout numbers in Tarrant closely reflected the numbers in 2018, when the county again went for Democrat Beto O’Rourke over Republican Ted Cruz in that year’s U.S. Senate elections.
High engagement in Collin County might also be attributed to competitive races in the county, where Ken Paxton started his political career.
But voters in Collin County supported Paxton’s opponent for U.S. Senate James Talarico and Democrat Gina Hinojosa, who defeated Greg Abbott in the race for Texas governor. They also elected Republican Chris Hill for county judge.
Despite these competitive races, voter turnout in 2026 — like in 2022 — still trailed behind the 2018 elections during President Trump’s first term. That year, midterm voter turnout hit a 50-year high nationwide.
Copyright 2026 KERA News