Texas GOP's Early Vote Firewall Nears 700,000 as Paxton and Talarico Head for the Finish
Texas Republicans got an encouraging sign in the closing days of the campaign, as a new early voting model showed the party sitting on a lead of nearly 700,000 votes.
Election analyst E_DataGuy reported that more than six million Texans had already cast ballots as of October 29.
"Texas has now banked 6,103,792 early votes, with Republicans holding a 697,705 modelled firewall," the analyst wrote.
The firewall grew by roughly 63,000 in a day, with about 568,000 votes added. The same analyst's model projects Republicans between 51% and 57% and Democrats between 40% and 46%, with turnout near 54%.
Those figures are estimates, since Texas voters do not register by party. The analyst also noted that the modeled split of about 55% Republican to 44% Democrat is "a touch softer for Republicans than their 2024 share (56.0%), and slightly firmer for Democrats than 2022 (43.2%)."
Turnout has been heavy. The Associated Press reported that more than 6.3 million Texans had voted early by Friday, roughly 50% above the comparable 2022 pace. The state went into the election with a record 19,041,684 registered voters.
A nearly four-decade streak on the line
At the top of the ballot, Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has President Trump's backing and beat Sen. John Cornyn in the primary runoff, faces Democratic state Rep. James Talarico for the U.S. Senate. Texas has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1988.
Talarico has been a fundraising machine, pulling in $64 million in the third quarter to Paxton's $18 million. That gap would normally set off alarms, but Republican-aligned groups have spent more than $100 million on Paxton's behalf, helping make Texas one of the most expensive battlegrounds in the country.
Trump's political network is part of that effort. MAGA Inc. has spent nearly $277 million since September across the battlegrounds, including millions against Talarico and his Democratic allies, and it still held more than $164 million on October 14.
Nationally, the Associated Press reported that Republican-aligned groups had roughly $1 billion heading into October, compared with about $579 million for comparable Democratic organizations. President Trump said his political operation would commit more than $400 million to the midterms, with about $300 million already spent on advertising, voter contact, rallies and election monitoring.
The party committees are well stocked too. Federal filings show the Republican National Committee held about $76.2 million through October 14, with no committee debt reported. The National Republican Congressional Committee raised about $250 million through September, narrowly ahead of its Democratic counterpart's $249 million, and started October with about $61 million to the DCCC's roughly $55.7 million.
Speaker Mike Johnson has raised more than $220 million for House Republicans since taking the gavel, and a Supreme Court ruling that ended limits on party coordination lets those committees stretch their late dollars further.
None of this tells us how any individual ballot was marked, and Republicans will still need a strong showing on Election Day. But for Paxton, the early numbers are the kind a campaign wants to see.