Texas Democrats find hope in rising suburban turnout
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
Austin's largest suburban counties, once reliably Republican, have seen an eye-popping increase in the number of Democratic voters, according to county voting data.
Why it matters: The battleground for Texas' U.S. Senate race and other key November contests will play out in suburban areas, where energized Democratic voters are determined to push back on President Trump.
Stunning stat: In Williamson County, where Trump won by 2.5 percentage points in 2024, Democratic voters outnumbered Republican voters by roughly 65,000 to 52,000 in the March 2026 U.S. Senate primary.
- In March 2018, by comparison, the last Trump midterm election year, 25,681 voters participated in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary and 35,675 voters cast ballots in the Republican primary.
- Over that eight-year period, the overall number of registered voters in Williamson County grew from 316,004 to 455,139, a reflection of booming population growth in Texas' suburbs.
By the numbers: In Hays County, where Trump lost two years ago by 5.6 percentage points, nearly twice as many voters cast ballots in this year's Democratic U.S. Senate primary (roughly 34,000) as in the GOP primary (about 18,500).
- By contrast, in the 2022 Biden midterm year, more than 15,500 votes were cast in the Republican primary and 13,000 in the Democratic one.
- In 2018, Republicans cast about 12,000 votes in the Hays County U.S. Senate primary; Democrats, about 11,500.
The big picture: The number of registered voters in Hays County has increased from 162,922 in 2022 to 196,129 this year, as middle-class Austinites seek cheaper housing in the suburbs.
What they're saying: "Part of it is people being priced out of Austin and heading to surrounding localities — going to Williamson County, to Hays, to Bastrop," Kim Gilby, chair of the Williamson County Democratic Party, tells Axios about the growth in Democratic voters. "Part of it is young folks paying attention — we see more and more young people trying to become precinct chairs."
- "People here are … telling us the Republican party has left them," she says. (More voters nationally are identifying themselves as Democratic, per a new analysis by Gallup.)
The other side: "Primary turnout may reflect energy behind a specific race or candidate, but does not necessarily translate to general election turnout or down ballot performance," Michelle Evans, GOP county chair in Williamson County, tells Axios.
- Neither the GOP county chair for Hays county nor the Republican Party of Texas immediately responded to an interview request.
Zoom out: Statewide, more Democratic ballots were cast (2.32 million) in the U.S. Senate race in the March primary than Republican ones (2.17 million). Both ballots featured hotly contested races for U.S. Senate.
The bottom line: Republicans are riding a three-decade winning streak in statewide elections in Texas, but Democrats point to rising Democratic turnout as a reason for optimism come November.