TEXAS, USA — As of Monday, there have been over 3 million votes cast in early voting across Texas, but that’s on track to be lower than the two previous election cycles around this same time period.
Political experts said low turnout is relatively good news for incumbent Republican Governor Greg Abbott while Democrats say their prime focus are voting precincts.
With election day quickly approaching, turnout will be key.
“At this point, the campaign for all intents and purposes is over,” Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project said.
The first full week of early voting saw Abbott and O’Rourke crisscrossing the state trying to move voters to the polls.
“Abbott's strategy really focuses on getting out the vote in small town and rural Texas and a real emphasis on the border counties,” Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University said. “O’Rourke has focused on the urban areas, some of the cores in Dallas, Houston, etc. He’s also put a lot of emphasis on turning out the youth vote.”
Political experts said this election is gearing up to be similar to elections before 2020 and 2018. In those years, turnout increased historically.
“When we see low turnout, electorates, we tend to assume that we’re going to see a generally pretty standard election. When we start to see turnout tick up and get higher, it’s not that we think that necessarily benefits one party or the other, but it tells us that we can’t be certain exactly what the outcome is going to be as more and more Texans cast ballots,” said Blank.
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But nearly a week away from election day, new polling from the University of Texas at Tyler shows Abbott maintaining his lead in polling among likely voters 50 to 44 percent.
“No votes count until votes are counted, but when we look at the sum total of the state-wide polling to date, it seems pretty unlikely that Governor Abbott is going to walk away with a victory on November 8,” said Blank.