Texas has gone from a low voter turnout state to one of the top states for early voting.
However, with such a large turnout political analysts say it’s hard to see who will actually win it all.
“Texas is seen as one of the hardest states to vote in, so having such a great turn out is quite significant and quite an achievement for Texas. It’s significant to showcase that even at the national level not just at the local level and at the state wide level so many offices are in play for both parties,” said Dr. John Koehler, Professor of Political Science at A&M Central Texas.
Candidates on all levels are making their final campaign push. But with a Record high early voting turnout it’s clear millions of people have already made up their mind.
“So with the large turn out the stakes are a lot higher for all of the different campaigns, on the other hand they can’t convince any other voters. There’s only so many voters left that haven’t voted already,” said Koehler.
Of the 16 million registered voters in Texas, about 7.5 million have already voted with 3 days left for early voting. With counties like Harris and Dallas shifting Democrat for the past two presidential elections, and other large counties like Tarrant swaying blue for this go year, Texas upholds its battleground status.
“Texas in terms of the presidential election has one of the largest numbers of electoral votes so it is the core of a Republican electoral votes essentially similar to California for a Democrat," Koehler said.
While juggling early voters, county election officials are preparing for one of the biggest elections in modern history.
"Just getting stuff tested getting things programmed for our Election Day stuff. We’re kind of in the middle of getting that prepared for deployment for next week so we’ve just been busy," said Matthew Dutton Bell County Interim Elections Administrator.
Dutton says things have been fairly smooth across the county and he hope it will stay that way through Election Day. While Dr. Kohler says one of the reasons why Texas is seeing a shift is because of the demographic changes in some of Texas' largest cities, like Houston, Dallas and El Paso.
