Just a quarter of registered voters in Texas participated in the 2020 presidential primary

For the first time since 2008, more Texans voted in the Democratic presidential primary than in the Republican primary — but just barely.

With all polling places tallied Thursday, Democrats had cast 2,076,046 votes in the pitched contest to take on President Donald Trump in November. Meanwhile, Republicans cast 2,008,385 votes in the presidential contest. Overall, a small majority of votes — 2,071,745 — came during early voting, and 2,012,686 were cast on election day, according to the Texas secretary of state’s office.

(Those vote tallies remain unofficial. County election officials are still processing mail-in ballots that were postmarked by election day and working through which provisional ballots will be counted.)

More than anything, turnout in presidential primary elections has historically served as a measure of the competitiveness of the race and the heightened enthusiasm that comes with that. That was particularly true this year when the Democratic field narrowed significantly just before Super Tuesday, when Texas’ massive haul of delegates came up for grabs.

Republicans voting in the presidential primary had outpaced Democrats during the state’s early voting period. The opposite was true on election day.

The increased election day turnout was felt on the ground. In Bexar County, election officials said they averaged 6,000 voters an hour in the first three hours of voting.

To no one’s surprise given the state’s depressing turnout history, a small slice of Texas’ total electorate participated in Tuesday’s presidential primary. With 16.2 million Texans registered to vote, just 25.2% cast a ballot in the primary election.

Turnout in primary elections is hardly an indicator for statewide electoral outcomes in November general elections.

The 2008 primary fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama drove Democratic turnout up to 22.5% — a recent high water mark — but the Republican nominee, former U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, beat Obama by nearly 12 points later that year.

Texas uses an open primary system, meaning voters can decide at the polls whether they want to vote in the Democratic or Republican contest.

Disclosure: The Texas secretary of state has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.