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Texas adds 1.8M registered voters since 2016 presidential election
A record 16.9 million Texans are registered to vote in the Nov. 3 election, according to the latest data from the Texas secretary of state’s office.
It’s an increase of about 1.8 million voters since the 2016 presidential election, when 15 million, or 78.2% of the state’s voting-age population, registered to vote.
The latest figure, released Monday, accounted for 78.3% percent of the state’s roughly 21.5 million eligible voters, although it’s not the final statewide registration number ahead of the Nov. 3 election. The official count is expected in the coming days, according to secretary of state officials.
The number grew by nearly 300,000 from two weeks ago, the last time the agency reported registration figures.
The deadline to register to vote was Oct. 5. Early voting started Tuesday and runs through Oct. 30.
Nearly all eligible voters in Travis County were registered to vote this year, according to Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector Bruce Elfant.
Of the county’s more than 850,000 eligible voters, a record 97% of them are registered to vote in the Nov. 3 general election, Elfant said.
That’s a 17.2% increase since the 2016 presidential election, when Travis County had about 725,000 registered voters, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Other Central Texas counties saw the number of registered voters grow by more than 24% since 2016, among the highest increases in the state.
Williamson County jumped from 300,000 to more than 375,000 registered voters, a more than 25% increase.
Hays County saw a 24% increase and Comal County saw a more than 25% bump.
The figures come despite lagging new voter registrations in some of Texas’ biggest counties, including Travis, when the coronavirus pandemic first hit Texas.
READ MORE: Voter registration has flatlined in big urban counties
Bexar County increased from 1 million to nearly 1.2 million, or a 13.1% increase in registered voters since 2016.
Harris County saw an 11% increase, while Dallas County saw an 8.5% increase.
The Texas Democratic Party says there are promising signs that Texas could elect the first Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976, pointing to an analysis Tuesday from TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm, which found that 60% of new registered voters are either under the age of 25 or people of color.
“As one of the youngest and most diverse states in the country, the electorate in Texas has fundamentally shifted over the past few years,” party executive director Manny Garcia said in a statement. “Turnout in the election is expected to break records and Texas Democrats have built a winning coalition of voters because we have earned the trust of Texans.”
Also on the line: a U.S. Senate seat; a dozen congressional seats, all but two of them held by Democrats, that national political experts say could switch party hands; and the Texas House, where Democrats must flip nine seats to become the majority.
But Republicans say they expect to win the down the line, and retain control of the Texas House. President Donald Trump’s campaign has hosted a flurry of events and ramped up its field operation in the state over the past couple months, mindful that a Trump victory must go through Texas. There would be no path to a Trump victory without winning Texas.
But with polling showing the presidential contest in Texas close, the Biden campaign is boosting ad spending and campaign appearances in the state.
As Jill Biden, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, campaigned in El Paso, Dallas and Houston on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign said Democrats were “wasting their time in Texas.”
“Nevertheless, we welcome them to light their money on fire because Texas will reelect President Trump on Nov. 3,” Samantha Cotten said in a statement Tuesday.
https://www.statesman.com/news/20201...ntial-election