If it’s clear Biden has won Texas’ 38 electoral votes in the hours after polls close on Election Day, November 3rd, then Trump would have no viable path to victory.
The election would be over that night, before Trump’s lawyers can get through the courtroom doors on November 4th to stop the vote counts in other states, and Trump will no choice other than to pack his bags to hit the road.
If Biden wins Texas along with the likely blue states, including Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota and Virginia, he would top the 270 electoral college vote win threshold even if he loses all the other key electoral college states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona and Florida. Trump, on the other hand, cannot win without Texas.
Texas election law permits election officials in Texas counties with a population greater than 100,000 people to start running returned mail ballots through optical scanners as the county ballot board validates returned mail ballots, according to the Texas Secretary of State. (For counties with a population of less than 100,000, the early voting ballot board may convene to begin processing mail ballots after the polls close on the last day of in-person early voting.) The counts of scanned ballots are securely held unreported on computer memory cards which can be read as soon a polls close on Election Day. All the in-person votes and all but a very small portion of the state’s total mail ballot vote will be tabulated in the hours - not days - following the close of Election Day, November 3rd, voting. (County election officials in Florida will also begin scanning returned mail ballots well before Election Day and will also begin reporting result in the hours after polls close on Election Day.)
Texas is a legitimate 2020 swing state. Biden has consistently polled better in Texas than has any recent Democratic presidential candidate. According to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, Trump leads Biden in Texas by 1.6 points, a statistical tie — and “likely voter” polls have consistently underestimated the turnout vote for recent Democratic candidates.
Texas suburbs are the key to this year’s elections. In 2016, Trump won the suburbs 58-37, en route to a nine-point statewide win. Hillary Clinton won urban areas 53-42 and Trump won rural areas 70-26.
According to a new Civiqs poll conducted October 3-6, beginning the day after Trump was hospitalized with COVID-19, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are tied at 48 percent each. Biden is winning urban areas 57-39, and losing rural areas 61-38. Both are improvements over 2016 Democratic performance. But the in the suburbs across Texas’ 12 most populous counties, where the election will be win or lost by Democrats, the candidates are tied at 49 percent each — a staggering 21-point net swing.
We will know whether Texas’ 38 electoral college votes will go to Joe Biden or Donald Trump by end of day Wednesday, November 4th by the ballot count and rate of voter turnout. If Donald Trump does not earn Texas’ 38 electoral votes, he has no hope of being re-elected no matter how many extra hours or days it takes for other states to tabulate their in-person and mail ballots.
Texas is the state where record voter turnout — that boosts the turnout share of more left-leaning young people and people of color — will put Joe Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot over the winners finish line. Texas’ voter turnout rate ranks last among the states because a larger portion of more left-leaning young people and people of color in Texas are non-voters than in other states. “Texas isn’t a red state; it’s a non-voting state,” the saying goes.
- In 2016, the highest turnout rates were among very right-leaning voters between 65 and 79 years old, and the lowest turnout rates were among more left-leaning voters ages 18 to 29: Ages 65-69 (74 percent), 70-74 (75 percent) and 75-79 (72 percent) age cohorts notably higher than among those in the 18-19 (44 percent), 20-24 (38 percent) and 25-29 (42 percent).
- TexasTrib: Texas - No country for young voters.
- Youth Vote Enthusiasm Highest Since 2008.
For more than 25 years Texas has been almost last or dead last among the states in voter turnout. In the 2016 presidential election, Texas placed near the bottom of all the states in voter turnout, ranking 47th. Only 59.4 percent or the 15.1 million people who were registered to vote in 2016 cast a ballot in that election. The last time Texas turnout topped 60 percent was 1992 when 72.9 percent of registered voters cast a ballot for G.H.W Bush, Bill Clinton, Ross Perot, or other minor candidate.
For the 2020 election, Texas will have and estimated 16.8 million registered voters, an increase of 1.7 million voters from Election Day 2016. The majority of those new voters belong to three left-leaning generational groups – Gen Z (18-21), Millennials (22-37), and Gen X (38-53) who largely reside in and around Texas’ 12 most populous urban/suburban counties — Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, Collin, Denton, El Paso, Fort Bend, Hidalgo, Montgomery, and Williamson — where Democrats increasingly outnumber Republicans.
Polling of the Texas electorate has significantly underestimated Democratic performance because, unlike demographically declining rustbelt states, Texas has a rapidly growing dynamic electorate of voters who are younger, more likely to have college degrees and more likely to be people of color — and often more difficult to poll. The only question to answers is - will they turnout vote this year, after largely remaining as non-voters for past elections.
Through the 18 days of early voting this year we will track the daily raw numbers and registered voter shares of in-person and returned mail balloting to see if Texas turnout might break the 60 percent barrier, and if so, by how much.
In particular, we‘ll track the turnout differential between Texas’ 12 high growth most populous — and increasingly left-leaning — urban/suburban counties and the other 242 more rural low growth — more right-leaning — counties.
Republican Mitt Romney won the 2012 aggregate vote of the 12 most populous urban/suburban counties and the 242 rural counties. While Republican Romney won the 12 counties over Obama by a slim margin of 50.1-48.4 percent in 2012, Trump lost the 12 counties to Clinton 43-52 percent in 2016. By 2016 the electorate of the 12 counties was quickly changing as increasing numbers of people relocated to those counties from other (blue) states.
In 2018 Texas' incumbent Republican Senator, Ted Cruz, experienced an even larger loss to Democrat Beto O’Rourke (41.4-57.8 percent) across the 12 counties on historically very high midterm turnout that rivaled presidential year turnout levels.
Sen. Cruz was able to beat Beto O’Rourke in 2018 only by trouncing him two-to-one in Texas' 219 rural staunchly Republican counties, where less than a one-third of the state’s voters live that year; meanwhile, Democrats captured six Republican-held state House seats in the outskirts of Dallas alone, plus six more across the other 12 most populous urban/suburban county districts, while also giving Republicans heartburn in several suburban U.S. House districts where the GOP was routinely winning by 20-plus points just a few years ago. Democrats did flip two Republican-held congressional districts in 2018 midterm and came very close to flipping five more districts.
From 2012 to 2018 the total number of Texans registered to vote grew from 13.65 million to 15.8 million for an increase of over 2 million voters. Texas’ 12 most populous counties, plus the 23 smaller left-leaning counties, account for 1.5 million of those new registrations. Texas’ 219 solidly Republican rural counties grew by only about 0.5 million voters.
2020 may be the election year Republicans are no longer able to cover their growing losses across the state's 12 rapidly growing most populous counties with big wins across the state's 219 stagnate population of rural Republican voters.
In July, Gov. Abbott added six days to Texas’ standard 12 day early voting period, moving the early voting start date up to Oct. 13 from Oct. 19, citing the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to tracking the raw counts and ratios of balloting, we can compare the first 12 days of early and mail balloting numbers this year with the 12 days of 2016 early balloting.
Every percentage point of turnout over 60 percent this year indicates an increase in younger more left-leaning voter turnout, which in turn increases the probability Joe Biden will win the state’s 38 electoral college votes, and Democratic Party control over the state’s House of Representatives for the first time in almost 20 years.
Daily 2020 vs 2016 turnout comparison for Texas' 12 most populous counties:
|
Voting Day |
In-Person Daily |
Cumulative In-Person Voters |
% of Total I-P |
Mail Ballots Returned Daily |
Cumulative Mail Voters |
% of Total Mail Voters |
Cumulative In-Person & Mail Vote |
% of Reg Voted |
|
1-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1-2016 |
394,280 |
394,280 |
68.4% |
182,136 |
182,136 |
31.6% |
576,416 |
5.9% |
|
2-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2-2016 |
401,459 |
795,739 |
80.6% |
9,767 |
191,903 |
19.4% |
987,642 |
10.1% |
|
3-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3-2016 |
388,026 |
1,183,765 |
84.8% |
20,778 |
212,681 |
15.2% |
1,396,446 |
14.3% |
|
4-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4-2016 |
372,099 |
1,555,864 |
87.3% |
14,503 |
227,184 |
12.7% |
1,783,048 |
18.3% |
|
5-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
5-2016 |
383,641 |
1,939,505 |
89.0% |
13,603 |
240,787 |
11.0% |
2,180,292 |
22.3% |
|
6-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6-2016 |
321,300 |
2,260,805 |
90.0% |
10,089 |
250,876 |
10.0% |
2,511,681 |
25.7% |
|
7-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
7-2016 |
143,154 |
2,403,959 |
90.4% |
5,030 |
255,906 |
9.6% |
2,659,865 |
27.3% |
|
8-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
8-2016 |
307,536 |
2,711,495 |
90.8% |
17,616 |
273,522 |
9.2% |
2,985,017 |
30.6% |
|
9-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
9-2016 |
322,225 |
3,033,720 |
91.5% |
6,600 |
280,122 |
8.5% |
3,313,842 |
34.0% |
|
10-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
10-2016 |
326,514 |
3,360,234 |
92.0% |
6,600 |
290,789 |
8.0% |
3,651,023 |
37.4% |
|
11-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
11-2016 |
341,257 |
3,701,491 |
92.5% |
10,346 |
301,135 |
7.5% |
4,002,626 |
41.0% |
|
12-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
12-2016 |
484,616 |
4,186,107 |
93.1% |
10,189 |
311,324 |
6.9% |
4,497,431 |
46.1% |
|
13-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
14-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
15-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
16-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
17-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
18-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ED-2020 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ED-2016 |
1,324,040 |
5,371,788 |
95.7% |
9,952 |
320,684 |
5.7% |
5,614,214 |
61.3% |
|
|
Texas’ 12 most populous urban/suburban counties — Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, Collin, Denton, El Paso, Fort Bend, Hidalgo, Montgomery, and Williamson — 2016 Reg Voters: 9,154,375; 2020 Reg Voters: 10,403,266 Source — Texas Secretary of State / DemBlogNews.com |
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