Democratic Party Set To Show Its Force In Nation’s First 2018 Primary

Texas holds the nation’s first primaries of the year on Tuesday, previewing whether reinvigorated Democrats will turn out in big numbers for the November midterms.

Early voting in Texas, which lasted 11 days and ended on Friday, is way up since the last midterm elections ― a nearly 50 percent increase. In fact, Texas’ 15 largest counties have broken records for early turnout in a non-presidential election year.

The increase was driven by Democrats.

More than 465,245 early votes were cast in the state’s Democratic primaries this year, compared to over 420,329 in the Republican races. In 2014, by contrast, Republicans outpaced Democrats in early voting ― 365,423 voters to 226,730.

“After the 2016 election, Texas became a single-digit state,” Texas Democratic Party spokesman Tariq Thowfeek said, referring to Donald Trump carrying it by 9 percentage points, whereas for decades GOP presidential candidates won it by double digits.

“We watched that progressive energy grow into a record-breaking number of candidates and an incredible excitement around the March primary,” Thowfeek said. “It’s clear that folks are fired up, exceeding all expectations, and voting in force. Texas Democrats are poised to have to the best midterm of our lifetime.”

Source: huffingtonpost