90% of Texans don’t vote in primary elections. Here’s why you should make sure you do
Texas’ most important election starts Monday.
In this election, your vote really counts.
About 90% of Texans usually don’t vote in primaries — and turnout this year might be even worse.
So, your vote will count more than ever in an election that will decide Texas’ and Tarrant County’s future.
For 20 years, one party has decided everything about how Texas and the county are run.
But only about 6% of voters show up to choose the Republican Party nominees.
That means 6% of residents elect most of the leaders for the state and county.
In Texas, anyone can vote in either primary.
With this year’s low turnout, a few hundred votes can make a difference for years to come.
That’s because turnout will be lower than usual this year. The race for governor is basically settled — Gov. Greg Abbott will face El Paso Democrat Beto O’Rourke — and there aren’t any vivid downballot state primary contests.
“There isn’t a lot to make this midterm deviate from the usual trend,” said political scientist Rebecca Deen, associate dean of liberal arts at UT Arlington.
Republicans have more “energy in the base,” she said.
But they don’t have energy for state offices, unless you’re all fired up to keep or fire Attorney General Ken Paxton.
On the other hand, the Republican primary in Tarrant County will decide:
▪ The probable county judge.
▪ The probable criminal district attorney.
▪ The probable county commissioner for north and west Fort Worth and Tarrant County, and
▪ A new Texas House member from far north Fort Worth.
(True, Democrats have more contested races. But that party’s nominees will go into November as the underdogs in all but one race — an open Texas House seat in Euless and east Arlington.)
So if you really want to make your vote count, vote in the Republican primary from Monday through Feb. 25, or on Election Day, March 1.
Paxton’s re-election campaign against three challengers is the only race sparking statewide interest, said political scientist Matthew Wilson of Southern Methodist University, a scholar on conservative voters and religion in politics.
“Low turnout will favor more ideologically extreme candidates,” he said, because the voters are mainly “partisan diehards.”
That bodes well for Paxton and a possible May 27 runoff against U.S. Rep Louie Gohmert, not challengers George P. Bush or Eva Guzman, Wilson said.
One note of interest: In both parties, women are more likely to vote than men.
Tarrant County voters are 54% female, and even in the Republican primary, women outvote men by about 2 percentage points.
That might mean a slight advantage for county judge candidate Betsy Price of Fort Worth and district attorney candidate Mollee Westfall of Fort Worth, along with state education board candidate Pat Hardy and Texas House candidates Laura Hill and Stephanie Klick.
Of course, Democratic women primary voters outnumber men by almost 3-to-2. That’s a potential edge for county judge candidate Deborah Peoples of Fort Worth, district attorney candidate Tiffany Burks of Grand Prairie or Texas House candidate Tracy Scott of Arlington.
In both parties, women can decide the future of Texas and Tarrant County.
We all can. If we just vote.
This story was originally published February 11, 2022 at 12:45 PM.
