Here are some excerpts from a November 9 article in the New York Times about the mid-term election turnout. Texas is on the move.
“By percent of people eligible to vote, it was the highest turnout of any midterm election [nationally] since at least 1970 and the first time midterm turnout topped 100 million. . .”
“In some counties, something almost unheard-of happened: More people voted in the midterms than in the last presidential election. One example is fast-growing Travis County, Tex., which contains the left-leaning city of Austin. Preliminary numbers show that 775,950 people voted there on Tuesday, compared with 725,035 in 2016.”
“Texas, which had the nation’s lowest percentage turnout in 2014, saw the biggest increase this year: 63 percent more people voted than in the last midterm elections.”
“For one thing, there were exciting and competitive races in some states that rarely have them. In Texas, which had the biggest turnout increase in the country, Beto O’Rourke launched a headline-grabbing challenge to Senator Ted Cruz and lost by less than three percentage points. (For comparison, Mr. Cruz was elected by 16 percentage points in 2012.)”
AND HERE’S MORE PROOF TEXAS IS CHANGING:
Seventeen lawyers, all Black women, won their races for judgeships “by double-digits in Harris County, Tex., the nation’s third largest county, which includes Houston. Each of the lawyers, all Democrats ranging in age from 31 to early 60s, will join the bench in January for four-year terms in the civil, criminal, family and probate courts.”
Houston is also the nation’s most racially diverse city.