2026 Election: Early voting numbers provide insight ahead of Tuesday's runoff

Texas Primary runoff elections

Tuesday's runoff election will help decide which campaigns score a spot on the November ballot.

CEDAR PARK, Texas - Tuesday marks Election Day for several runoff races in Texas, including the hotly contested Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.

The count for early voting, which ended on Friday, indicates there may be a few Tuesday surprises still in play.

By the numbers:

Republicans saw the biggest turnout for early voting, while Democrats had a big drop-off after their March turnout.

According to the Texas Secretary of State, Republicans saw 829,261, or 4.4% of registered voters, while Democrats totaled 347,784, or 1.8% of registered voters.

Big picture view:

"It is on pace for a very high turnout runoff, which is atypical in these contests," said Brad Johnson with the Texas Bullpen.

The runoff surge by Republicans comes after Democrats outpaced GOP voters in March. 

Johnson noted how the Republican GOP Senate nomination wasn’t the only race to motivate people to show up.

"But also you've got a high-profile clash for attorney general on both sides of the aisle. You have a heated contest for railroad commission, and then a lot of congressional seats open down ballot. And so just generally there's more interest, which tracks. What does that mean for these candidates? That's very much up to interpretation," said Johnson.

The GOP senate nomination certainly remains the main driver to the polls. 

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Texas Senate GOP runoff: Paxton narrowly leads Cornyn in latest poll

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton holds a slight lead over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the upcoming May 26 runoff elections, according to the latest polling from the University of Houston.

Incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was in San Antonio Monday doing interviews after attending the annual Service Academy Sendoff. Texas AG Ken Paxton was on FOX and Friends to start his day.

"Cornyn is needing to pull in voters who did not show up the first time around. And I think that number was, tou know, well below 10% in terms of the early vote itself. But you know that could swing an election if margins are tight enough, but are they," said Johnson.

Initial early voting turnout numbers for the GOP runoff ballot indicate the bulk of those who voted last week also voted back in March. A county by county analysis also shows strong turnout in urban areas — several spots where Cornyn did better than Paxton in March.

"There's things to take away, positive and negative for the Cornin camp and also the Paxton camp in terms of what we've seen with these early vote returns," said Johnson.

The Democrats also have some interesting runoff races.

"Well, I think higher turnout benefits the person who spent more money in a lot of these races. And, uh, unfortunately there in a lot of these Democratic contests, there's a lot of spending parity, you know, and you've got Vicki Goodwin running for lieutenant governor. She should be the nominee for the Democrats, but Marcus Velaz has gotten a lot of money from various groups looking for an alternative to Goodwin for that slot. Nathan Johnson nearly won without a runoff in the March primary, but he did not escape that. He faces Joe Jaworski for Attorney General, and you know he spent more money, but not by a lot. So, you know, this is really up in the air, I think," said Johnson.

Dig deeper:

There are several congressional races also making headlines in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.  

However, without a big Tuesday turnout, those races may be over once the early voting results are released.