Texas Early Voting Breaks the Midterm Record as 7.7 Million Cast Ballots Before Election Day

Texas voters did not wait for Election Day. More than 7.7 million Texans cast ballots during early voting in the 2026 midterm election, according to preliminary data from the secretary of state's office as of Sunday morning, reported by The Texas Tribune. The total puts turnout at 40.5 percent of registered voters, passing the modern day high water mark for a midterm set in 2018.

In person early voting ended on Friday, October 30. The count is preliminary and not final. Each county reports its own turnout, some post sooner than others, and mail ballots are still expected to come in, the Tribune reported.

More than 19 million Texans are registered to vote this year, up 2.2 percent from the November 2024 presidential election.

How the record compares

The early total is well above the last midterm. In 2022, about 5.5 million Texans voted early, a 31 percent turnout rate. Presidential years still run higher: Texans cast 9 million early ballots in the 2024 general election, a 49 percent rate, and the highest rate in the last cycle was 2020, when 57 percent of registered voters, 9.7 million people, cast a ballot.

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, noted on Face the Nation that the Texas midterm record for total turnout is 8.3 million, leaving the early vote alone only about 600,000 ballots short of it before a single Election Day vote is counted, USA Today reported.

Counties drove the surge

Harris County's early vote rose to 1,006,505, up 34.2 percent from 750,116 in 2022, according to state numbers as of Sunday morning reported by KHOU. At least fifteen counties posted early voting totals that passed their entire turnout in 2022, including Williamson, Denton, Collin, Fort Bend and Hidalgo counties, Texas Signal reported.

The state's urban cores are seeing rising turnout rates. Harris, Dallas and Tarrant counties, the most populous in Texas, are all running above their previous midterm marks, according to preliminary reports cited by the Tribune.

"We're not going to hit presidential levels, but this is definitely high turnout," said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University. Jones added that the open question is how many votes are still out there.

The turnout comes with two statewide races drawing national attention. State Rep. James Talarico, an Austin Democrat, and Attorney General Ken Paxton, a McKinney Republican, are in a tight race for a U.S. Senate seat. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, an Austin Democrat, is challenging Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican running for a fourth term. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.