2024 Texas primary elections: How many people voted early in Tarrant County?

Polls are closed for in person early voting, with 105,142 people casting ballots in Tarrant County, numbers that lag 2020, when voters picked Donald Trump and Joe Biden for their Republican and Democratic party nominees.

The two candidates are again on the ballot for the 2024, having emerged as front-runners in their parties. The lack of competitive race at the top of the ticket is holding down turnout, said Jim Riddlesperger, a TCU political science professor.

“For people who are what I would call pedestrian voters, rather than really motivated voters, there is very little incentive that they see to go out and vote,” Riddlesperger said. “They haven’t invested themselves in the congressional or senate or state legislative elections that are up this year.”

But while numbers are down overall, there are more Republican primary voters this year than in 2020.

In 2020, 62,411 Democrats cast ballots early in person and 62,158 Republicans voted early in person. An additional 7,117 Democrats and 6,324 Republicans returned mail-in ballots between Jan. 23 and Feb. 28 of that year, the day the in person early voting period closed. In all, the votes represented 11.9% of Tarrant County’s 1.16 million registered voters.

This year, with Trump and Biden poised for another November match-up, 73,500 Republican primary voters and 31,642 Democratic primary voters cast ballots early in person, according to records from the county election office. Early voting began Feb. 20 and ran through March 1. Between Jan. 26 and March 1, 7,042 mail in ballots were returned. Combined, that represents 8.8% of the county’s roughly 1.28 million registered voters.

Looking at the Republican Party and Democratic primaries separately, there were some 11,000 more people who voted early in person in the Republican primary this year than in 2020. About half as many Democratic primary voters voted early this year compared to 2020.