Democratic voter turnout more than doubled compared with recent Texas primaries, helping drive more than 4.4 million ballots cast in this year's statewide primary elections.
Because Texas hasn't released a single statewide turnout number on election night, the Texas Secretary of State's office recommended using a "benchmark race" — typically a high-profile statewide contest — to estimate participation.
Using the U.S. Senate race as that benchmark, roughly 4.48 million Texans voted in the primaries this year. That includes 2.3 million Democratic voters and 2.16 million Republican voters casting ballots overall.
The turnout this year from Texas Democrats marks a sharp increase from what the state saw in recent primary elections. That's according to The Texas Newsroom's analysis using the same benchmark method used to compare turnout in previous cycles.
Take 2022's primaries, when Beto O'Rourke won the Democratic nomination for governor. In that race, Democrats cast about 1.07 million total votes, according to state data. And using the presidential race as the benchmark in the 2024 Texas presidential primary — when then-President Joe Biden secured the Democratic nomination — Democrats cast roughly 982,000 ballots overall.
Republican turnout remained strong for this year's primaries, but looking at the numbers using similar benchmarks, overall 2026 voter participation ranked in the middle of Republicans' last two election cycles. In 2022, Republicans cast about 1.95 million ballots in their party's primary. In 2024, Republicans recorded about 2.32 million votes.
The Democratic surge was evident during early voting as well, when Democrats outpaced Republicans in ballots cast before Election Day.
Political scientists say this year's jump may reflect increased enthusiasm among Democratic voters. Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, recently told KERA News that criticism of the Trump administration and a competitive Democratic primary for U.S. Senate helped drive interest this year.
"Democrats have generally not perceived that they had that great of a chance to win statewide office, and they haven't had especially interesting primaries," Wilson said. "But those two things aren't true this time."
The Texas Newsroom is a public radio journalism collaboration that includes NPR, KERA in North Texas, Houston Public Media, KUT in Austin, Texas Public Radio in San Antonio and other stations across the state.