Texas’s five biggest counties smashed voter turnout records on the state’s first day of early voting in the midterm elections.
Harris, Dallas, Bexar, Travis, and Tarrant counties all eclipsed early voting records for at least two of the last three elections, Sawyer Hackett, a political strategist, posted on X Tuesday. Some of those records were set during President Donald Trump’s last midterm elections, in 2018.
Voter turnout was high in the few counties won by former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election. In Harris County, the state’s most populous county, more than 104,600 people cast their ballots on Monday. That breaks the previous midterm record set in 2018, when 63,188 votes were cast and Democrats went on to recapture the House.
In Dallas County, home to more than two million people, 76,079 voters cast their ballots, eclipsing the 2018 midterm record of 59,389, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins reported.
In Bexar County, 42,776 voters cast their ballots on the first day of early voting—the highest first-day turnout for a midterm election or non-presidential election in the county’s history.
In Travis County, 40,777 voters cast their ballots, surpassing records from 2022 and 2018, according to the county clerk’s office.
Turnout was also high in some counties where Trump was more popular—but that doesn’t mean Republicans have sealed the deal. In Tarrant County, 50,149 voters cast ballots, a 20 percent increase in voter turnout from 2018. Trump previously won Tarrant county by five points in 2024, after President Joe Biden flipped the county in 2020.