Voters cast roughly half as many Democratic in-person early votes in Bexar County’s 2024 primary as they did in 2020, according to data compiled by San Antonio political strategist Bert Santibañez.
The numbers largely track with turnout for the rest of the state, where more Republican ballots have been cast than in the last presidential primary, but Democratic primary votes are at about 60% of their early voting from 2020, when Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders were still duking it out for their party’s presidential nomination.
In a county with 1.2 million total registered voters, less than 8% have participated in the March 5 primary so far, not including mail-in ballots. Statewide, about 10% of registered voters, or 1.8 million people, cast a ballot during early voting.
Polls will be open one more day, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at more than 250 voting centers across Bexar County on Tuesday.
“The low voter participation this primary season for Democrats should be setting off alarm bells for both the county party and local elected officials,” Santibañez said. “When voters are seemingly unmotivated to vote for their local representatives en masse, what does that translate in terms of voter sentiment toward incumbents?”
Over 11 days of early voting in Bexar County, 39,302 Democratic early votes were cast in 2024, compared to 78,090 in 2020, according to Santibañez’s data.
Pointing to that enthusiasm gap, Communications Workers of America District Representative Geronimo Guerra said Saturday at a campaign rally that Democrats need to do a better job of selling Biden’s accomplishments to get their own voters excited.
“We know how important this election is. … We have Republicans that are out there taking hits at us all the time. Democrats need to throw the chingasos [punches] back,” Guerra said. “… The economy is thriving, right? Jobs are up, right? It’s not because of Republicans.”
Pointing to Biden’s support for a border security bill that Congressional Republicans killed, he added that Democrats need to attack Republicans over political gamesmanship when it comes to the border.
“We have to have those conversations, guys. We can’t be afraid,” Guerra said.
High-profile Republican contests
Republicans also have a relatively uneventful presidential primary this year, with former President Donald Trump barreling toward the party’s nomination.
But San Antonio political consultant Christian Anderson pointed to two Northside primary contests drawing millions in campaign spending that appear to have boosted GOP turnout from 2020.
Though Republicans are vastly outnumbered in Bexar County, 54,124 early votes were cast in the GOP primary in 2024, compared to 43,953 in 2020, an increase of 23%, according to the Secretary of State’s office.
Since Trump didn’t draw those primary voters out in 2020, Anderson, who worked on Republican Trish DeBerry’s successful Commissioners Court campaign that year, chalked the increased interest up to expensive down-ballot races.
State House Rep. Steve Allison (R) faces a deluge of spending from challenger Marc LaHood in Texas’ House District 121, which includes North Central San Antonio, some of unincorporated North Bexar County and the municipalities of Alamo Heights, Olmos Park and Terrell Hills and portions of Timberwood Park.
Outside groups put more than $1 million into that race between Jan. 26 and Feb. 24, including $672,000 from Gov. Greg Abbott to help LaHood, and a combined $400,000 from House Speaker Dade Phelan, the Charles Butt Public Education PAC and other business groups defending Allison.
Bexar County’s Precinct 3 also has a spirited Republican primary underway, where trucking company owner Chris Schuchardt has put roughly $367,000 of his own money into a campaign against Commissioner Grant Moody, who has spent about $461,000 on his first reelection race.
During 11 days of early voting, three Northside libraries saw the most activity in Bexar County. Brookhollow Library had the most early votes cast — 4,536 Republican votes and 1,736 Democratic votes — followed by Encino Library, Parman Library and John Igo Library.
At the conclusion of early voting, the location with the lowest turnout was at Palo Alto College on the Southside, where 330 votes were cast.
Bexar County Democrats have their own competitive race in the March 5 primary, including a local state senator, Roland Gutierrez, competing for his party’s nomination for a U.S. Senate seat.
But so far, their candidates haven’t drawn the same attention, nor have they spent much money.
Two Southside Democrats are competing in a relatively quiet race to decide who takes on Republican John Lujan in Texas’ House District 118 next year.
Meanwhile, four Democrats are running against Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores in Bexar County’s Precinct 1, but Clay-Flores has spent little of her half-million dollar war chest defending herself.
Statewide numbers
Among the state’s heavily Democratic urban centers, Bexar County is not alone in its partisan enthusiasm gap.
Derek Ryan, a Republican political consultant who shares his statewide voting analysis daily during early voting, said Sunday that at the conclusion of early voting, three of the state’s five largest counties saw more votes cast in the Republican primary than in the Democratic primary.
In addition to Bexar County, that list included deeply Democratic Harris County, which is home to Houston, and politically divided Tarrant County, which is home to Fort Worth.
Statewide, Republican primary voters cast 625,000 more in-person early votes than Democratic primary voters in 2024, according to Ryan’s data. Early voting in the Democratic primary was even lower than it was in the 2022 midterm.
Ryan noted that approximately 3.9% of votes cast in the Republican primary, or about 47,700 votes, were cast by people who had most recently voted in a Democratic primary prior to 2024. Of those, about a quarter of them came from South Texas, which includes San Antonio.
On the Democratic side, about 25,400 votes were cast by people who had most recently voted in a Republican primary.
