Across the nation, early voting has been pretty popular – beating 2016 thus far. Texas is having record-breaking early voting turnout for a mid-term election. That’s great. It just doesn’t mean a whole lot yet.
People who were going to vote anyway this cycle could just be voting early. I did. Stuff happens and I wanted to make sure that I participated in this election. If you don’t vote, you can’t complain. And I like to complain.
Yes, large early turnout numbers could mean a broader election turnout of registered voters – which should help Democrats. Yes, the numbers could mean more new voters are participating in the election – which should help Democrats. But, sadly, Republicans simply vote more often than Democrats and the numbers could portend an enthusiastic GOP turnout. The effect of the different early voting processes in each state is unclear but it’s bound to have an impact as well.
The bottom line is that no one knows anything at this point. Despite pundits of all stripes wanting to read all sorts of crap into initial early voting patterns and statistics, it’s just way too early to make any end-game assumptions whatsoever using that data.
Based on polling data, however, Democrats nationwide still look to be in good shape to take the House but perhaps lose ground in the Senate. In Texas, the fundamentals still heavily favor Republicans. Unless Texas Democrats are consistently polling over the margin of error in their races (they’re mostly not), it’s not a good sign. That said, there’s always hope for Texas. On the flip side, there’s still a real chance that the GOP maintains control of the House. The polling data could be wrong all around. See: 2016.
In any case, polls are just semi-educated guesses at best. It’s only votes that count. If you’re reading a political blog, I presume you’re a voter. But I’ll say it anyway:
PLEASE VOTE!!!