AUSTIN – For Texas political junkies, the early voting numbers in the Senate runoff are offering conflicting clues about whether John Cornyn or Ken Paxton holds the edge heading into Tuesday’s election.
Early voting ended Friday across the state, and the county-by-county results play into a key question: Can Cornyn’s relative strength in major metro areas offset Paxton’s dominance in smaller conservative counties.
That regional divide contributed to Cornyn finishing first in the March primary, though not with enough support to avoid a runoff against Paxton.
As expected, early voting collapsed for the runoff. Based on a near-final count from the secretary of state’s office, about 820,000 Texans cast Republican ballots by mail and in person versus 1.3 million in the primary.
Now that the bulk of the early votes are in, the turnout patterns reveal a mixed picture across Texas. Some of Cornyn’s best metro strongholds held up comparatively well even as smaller conservative areas backing Paxton posted higher turnout rates.
Among the notable turnout patterns identified by The Dallas Morning News:
Matt Mackowiak, a senior adviser for the Cornyn campaign, said he expects a close race and that Paxton’s campaign is hoping for a smaller runoff electorate.
“Unlike Ken Paxton, we want high turnout,” Mackowiak said. “We are working to turn out as many Republicans as possible.”
Nick Maddux, a spokesman for Paxton’s campaign, declined to comment.
Some Paxton-friendly suburban and exurban counties are seeing sharper declines from March, including:
At the same time, those counties are posting higher overall turnout rates in the runoff than some of Cornyn’s biggest metro areas, a trend that could benefit Paxton if it continues through Election Day.
Republican turnout among registered voters in Collin, Montgomery and Galveston counties was around 6% by the end of early voting, with Montgomery topping 6.4%. Dallas and Travis counties, two of Cornyn’s best March counties, were closer to 3%.
Cornyn showed somewhat stronger numbers in Tarrant and Denton counties, where GOP turnout among registered voters was running closer to 5% and 6%, respectively.
Another wildcard is whether supporters of Rep. Wesley Hunt, who finished third in the primary, will break toward Cornyn or Paxton in the runoff.