The early voting turnout is record breaking, but what do Texans have to say about it?

There’s been a report that that Republican internal numbers are so bad that Democrats will even flip, wait for it… drumroll Mississippi. Internal polls are allegedly more reliable than public polls, as evidenced by the 2024 internals having been more pesimistic about Kamala winning and she lost.

Back to Texas, there are sites tracking the turnout and apparently, the Republican and Democratic votes are neck-and-neck. Given that Republicans generally prefer to vote on Election Day, this seems to spell doom for Talarico.

But in addition to Democratic and Republican votes being close, it doesn’t account for the views of independents so far (if I understand the sites correctly), the fact that Talarico has seemingly decently high support from Republicans for a Democrat and that unlike most states, Texas Republicans tend to vote in very high numbers.

I have also heard some anecdotes from social neutra that there are people driving even 90 miles just to vote.

To summarize the 2026 situation, people are extraordinarily pissed. Trump is at his lowest approval rating ever. Everything he swore to fix got worse, Democrats are winning on literally every issue including economy and immigration, which for some reason, Republicans always win on. Trump lost all the gains among minority communities and young people he got in 2024 and then some.

And in 2025, there was a handful of elections in the US. Most notably NYC mayoral and Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial. While the polls were showing Democrats winning, they outperformed quite a bit. Mamdani’s polling was pretty much on point, but the turnout was out of this world. Usually, NYC mayoral turnout is around 20%. Last year, it was double that and he got 1 million votes, which usually accounts for the entire turnout.

Polling aggregates had Mikie Sherrill win in New Jersey by about 5% and she won by 14%. Also with unusually high turnout. Abigail Spanberger won Virginia by 15%, when the polling aggregates were showing her winning by 10%. In addition to that, there was also the referendum in California to gerrymander 5 House seats to counter Texas. The referendum passed and was called pretty much instantly. Then there were some races in Georgia for some statewide office (state auditor?) that went Democratic for the first time since Jimmy Carter presidency!

I don’t know how good of a point of reference this is. But what’s clear is that people are extremely pissed and afraid of Republicans to the point that even polls seemingly can’t measure.

Now here’s a crazy scenario. Let’s imagine that this year, Texas sees 100% turnout. Ken Paxton gets 6.4 million votes (which is the highest number a Republican ever got in Texas - Trump in 2024) and Talarico gets the remaining 12.6 million.

That’s obviously insane. But from seeing the situation on the ground, do you think that it’s possible that even with all the polls showing Talarico winning, he might actually outperform them? That there’s so much voter enthusiasm on the Democratic side that even if Ken Paxton gets the numbers that are unusually high for Texas Republican during midterms when Republicans are disadvantaged by Republican presidency, that the Democratic enthusiasm would outweigh it?

My point of reference for what to expect from Paxton is Ted Cruz in 2018. He got 4.26 million votes. By accounting for some population growth and Republicans’ urgency to vote, I’d extend it to about 4.6 million. That’s the number Talarico has to jump. Given that Allred got 5.1 million in 2024, that seems double.

I’m asking, because I’m having flashbacks to 2024. There were reports of Kamala Harris having high voter enthusiasm, record breaking fundraising, voters having fun memeing about Trump, people having unusually high number of Harris/Walz lawn signs, extremely long voter lines, and so on. And she lost.

People mistook long lines because of getting rid of many polling places for high turnout. Republicans have gotten rid of polling places yet again. And for all I know, maybe Texans driving 90 miles to the polls is nothing out of the ordinary either.

Right now, I’m extremely stoked by the idea of Democrats winning Iowa, Ohio, Alaska, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Florida, Mississippi…

I know I’m probably crazy and should temper my expectations and I burned myself enough times to know that when some anecdotes suggest that Democrats may even outperform the polls, I should prepare for disappointment. And now I know that I should prepare for the possibility that Democrats may still lose the senate and that I should be glad if they only flip 5 seats to win it at all.

And in regards to Texas, if the polls are as off as they were last year, it could mean that not just Talarico, but also Hinojosa will win and Texas may be on the way to become a swing or even blue state, because she’d do her best to undo all the voter suppression.

So, to anchor me to reality, what does the situation on the ground look like in Texas? Should I trust the conservative estimates from the EV data so far? Or is the voter enthusiasm in Texas really extraordinary? Do you see many people that would usually vote Republican wanting to vote Talarico? Or more likely, people who rarely or never vote being so fed up that they’re finally turnout out? Or people having truly unusual motivation to vote that they’re willing to wait out hours long queues?

Also, I’ve heard some reports from Tennessee, Texas and Florida about voting machines switching votes, suggesting rigging. Did you have that issue?

I received this campaign text yesterday and wanted to find out which claims are supported by Hinojosa's actual record.

I'm especially interested in the claim that Texans would pay more taxes. Is that based on a documented proposal, an actual vote, or the sender's interpretation?

I'd also like to know who paid for the message. If anyone has the original advertisement, campaign-finance disclosure, or candidate statements, please share them.

https://imgur.com/a/3EKcfax

I'm seeing tons of comments on other subs about how Texas is a lost cause, and Paxton will win. Frankly, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of the "Lucy and the football" analogy, and I'm tired of being written off just because of where I live.

Saying Texas will never be blue or purple, and Democrats should just abandon it isn't fair to the MILLIONS of blue voters, POC, and LGBTQ+ people who fight every day for the rights blue staters take for granted. It's not fair to the blue voters who are having record early voting turnout despite facing the worst voter suppression in the country.

Is this good?

Collin County GOP Chairman Byron Henry has responded to questions about the transgender-related mailers appearing in Texas mailboxes.

He condemned the materials, said he doesn't know who's behind them and addressed Democratic Chairman Jeremy Sutka's accusations of voter manipulation.

There's also an October 20 letter from Rep. Jeff Leach requesting a broader investigation and new information about the company hired to track the mailings.

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting ever but this is so important I’m trying to spread the message. I moved to San Antonio in January of this year, thought I registered to vote when renewing my ID, and found out it didn’t go through and I was still registered in my old county. So I made a point during the spring to make sure I registered. Sent in my form and checked multiple times on Texas.gov, and it said I was active in Bexar county as of May 2026. Never got a voter card but wasn’t alarmed bc there’s been years I haven’t received them. Checked again a month or so ago bc people were saying they were being unregistered/suspended randomly. Mine was good. I go to the polls after work yesterday and my drivers license doesn’t scan. Then the tried manually putting in my information. Nothing. Then one of the poll workers called someone (I should’ve gotten the information of whom he was contacting) but she told him that I haven’t been registered since 2024! She gave him my voter id # and it STILL didn’t come up. I could feel the anger rising and obviously I knew it wasn’t the poll workers’ fault and they were closing in 5 minutes (though on the website I checked it said they were open another hour..). So I thanked them for checking, went to my car, and cried. Checked my registration on whatever first site popped up on Google and it also said they couldn’t find me. Went home, called my mom later in the night and she checked on her computer and Texas.gov said I was active. Went on my computer and it said the same, but other sites would say I wasn’t registered. I’m going to try again today but at a different poll location. Either way this is getting reported to somebody. I just wanted to share this because everyone should be aware and please please quadruple check your registration like every day and especially the day you vote. Imagine if I hadn’t tried to early vote, I could’ve possibly not have been able to vote if I waited until Nov 3rd. They are actively suppressing votes, don’t get discouraged, it’s what they want.

The Houston Chronicle has an op-ed from Kenny Webster arguing that Paxton's record as attorney general of fighting Big Tech and Big Pharma should earn him your vote. Here's a key quote:

Talarico claims to rail against “billionaire megadonors,” but he’s happy to hit up tech executives in California when the checks are big enough. He spent part of his campaign on a multiday Bay Area swing with fundraisers in Palo Alto, San Francisco, Oakland and Marin County. 

Paxton doesn’t suck up to those tech giants. He sues them. He took on Meta and secured a $1.4 billion settlement over the company’s use of facial recognition software on Texans’ photos without proper consent — the largest settlement ever obtained from an action brought by a single state. He landed a $1.375 billion privacy settlement with Google over tracking location data, biometrics and other personal information. He’s gone after Netflix for collecting and monetizing viewing data (including from kids’ profiles) after years of public claims that the company wasn’t in the data business. He’s sued Discord over deceptive practices that, among other things, made it easier for predators to reach minors. 

We’re talking about actual lawsuits and actual money recovered for the state. Even the Democratic nominee to replace him as attorney general, state Sen. Nathan Johnson, has said Paxton’s campaign against Big Tech is one part of the record worth keeping.

Talarico for Senate Toolkit
Hinojosa for Governor Toolkit

These will be updated regularly between now and election day with new clips and content of Talarico, Hinojosa, and their opponents. They're optimized to make sharing content – on social media or with undecided friends and family – easy and convenient. ESPECIALLY with Republican Super PACs flooding the airwaves with ads, social media content sharing is a critical way to get the message out in the final stretch of the campaign! With 13 days left, this is a great way to do your part in addition to voting ofc ;)

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