2024 DATA: Democrats in Republican Primaries

Cause for concern?

The final numbers for early voting in the Texas primary elections were released and published by Derek Ryan of Ryan Data & Research, which shows some interesting information about crossover voting in both Texas primary elections. This is relevant because the Republican ballot includes a proposition on whether to close Texas primary elections.

Does the low % of crossover voters dispel concerns about Democrats voting in Republican primaries? Or do tens of thousands of Democrats picking winners in a few Republican races validate the concerns of some?

The Republican Party of Texas should restrict voting in the Republican Primary to only registered Republicans.

Yes

No

- Proposition 9, Republican Primary Ballot, 2024

2024 Texas Republican Primary:

The data shows that voters with a Democrat-only primary voting history voting in the Republican primary came to 30,121. This is out of a total of 1,220,390 votes.

This would mean that only 2.5% of votes this cycle were Democrats voting in a Republican primary.

Even if you add in both mixed primary voters and assume these are all Democrats voting for moderates, it only comes out to 7.7% *statewide*. This would still not seem substantial considering the number of races here in Texas. Although one could argue that those few races would be incredibly important.

2024 Texas Democrat Primary:

Turnout in the Democrat primary was horrible—less than half that of Republicans.

Voters with a Republican-only primary voting history who voted in the Democrat primary only totaled 12,530 or 2.1%. Only 0.4% less than Democrats in the Republican primary.

Additionally, if we were to add all the mixed primary voters to the ‘Republican only’ total, it would come out to a total of 10.2%. Higher than the total in the Republican primary.

This is a lot of numbers, and maybe somewhat confusing.

All to say, according to this data, if Democrats are voting in Republican primaries, then Republicans seem to also be voting in Democrat primaries.

It’s also possible that upwards of 10% of people who vote in either primary are unaware of what they are doing, and just vote randomly. Not sure how else you explain switching parties all the time.

Also, if they vote in Democrat-heavy areas, they may not even be alive. Dead people are notorious for switching parties when voting.

Another theory is that Republicans in deep-blue counties or cities are voting in Democrat primaries considering there’s no chance a Republican could win.

Voter Turnout Percentages by County for the Republican and Democrat Primaries

Turnout is horrible for Democrats, which is surprising since they have a chance to get rid of Ted Cruz in November. But the truth is, Democrats are super boring here in Texas, and even their own supporters can’t be bothered to leave their house to vote, even for a former NFL player.

Additionally, it shows there is a substantial amount of work for Republicans to do in the southern border counties. Turnout is abysmal.

All we know is that this guy knows how to turn out the Hispanic vote:

And we miss him.

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All data above via Ryan Data & Research