AUSTIN, Texas — More than 8.5 million Texans have already cast a ballot. But the question continues to be – who's the high turnout benefiting?
Derek Ryan is a GOP voter data analyst and has been tracking the numbers. As of Wednesday, his data showed voters who most recently voted in a Republican Primary have about a 350,000 vote advantage over voters who most recently voted in a Democratic Primary.
“Republicans are outnumbering people with previous Democratic primary history. What can we read into that? It’s tough to say,” he said. “I think the interesting thing is that when early voting first started we saw a surge in people with previous Democratic primary history showing up to vote. They were obviously energized. And as we’ve gotten through early voting, the past few weeks, we’ve seen more and more people with Republican primary histories starting to show up.”
Ryan’s data also shows 16 percent of people showing up to vote early have not voted in a previous general election in the last four election cycles.
The number of women voting is outpacing men about 53 percent to 43 percent, respectively. And young voters, aged 18-29, have already reached where they were in 2016 and Texas still has one day of early voting left and Election Day for voters to cast ballots.
Ryan says he believes the state is on track to surpass 12 million votes cast.