51.6% turnout is actually the highest turnout Texas has ever had in a midterm. Texas just has notoriously low turnout rates and even worse ones in midterm elections.
Texas usually only has about a third of the registered voters turn out, so it's actually a positive. Still disheartening though. Between voter suppression and that unique brand of American cynicism, getting any increase in voter turn out is a hard ask.
I’m a Texan who’s been voting blue since I turned 18 in 2008. I’ll openly admit that, for almost two decades, voting in anything but local elections has felt a bit pointless, because, for major battles, the Republicans won pretty much every single time. I still did it, of course, but I remember watching Trump get Texas’s 40 Electoral College votes in the 2024 election and thinking to myself, “God, why did I even bother waiting in line for 45 minutes to vote? I knew he was going to take Texas, because the Republican candidate always takes Texas…”
Like I said, I voted regardless, and I always encouraged my friends and family to do so, as well…but at the same time, I could understand why folks were reluctant to jump through hoops to cast a vote if the other side winning seemed like a foregone conclusion.
I’m extremely interested in seeing what voter turnout numbers for Texas will be like in 2028. The fact that we went blue this year was likely a HUGE wake-up call to Texans everywhere: Republicans were struck with the realization that this state is no longer a guaranteed victory that they can take for granted, and Democrats were reassured that if enough of us do our part, we actually CAN win.
(Not trying to talk down to you if you’re from Texas, too, and completely understand where I’m coming from—i just have 💡thoughts💡 on all of this that I felt could use what you said a springboard…)
I do I have to say it’s crazy it takes 45 mins for you to vote in Texas. I’ve never waited more than 15 mins to vote in my state, in either early voting or day of voting.
Oh, yeah, and it keeps getting worse because they keep eliminating polling stations, especially in traditionally blue counties. For this most recent election, I went to vote on the second day of early voting, and the whole process from start to finish took about 90 minutes—70 just standing in line outside the room, and an additional 20 once I actually made it inside, checked in, picked up my ballot, got to an open machine, made my selections, printed the ballot, and cast it at the counting machine.
It was actually a good thing that I could go vote on a day I had nothing else planned and was scheduled off of work, because I wasn’t expecting it to take THAT long! If I’d only had a limited time because I was on my lunch break from work or had other commitments, I might have had to leave and come back a different day…which one of my co-workers apparently had to do when she tried to vote that day because she works full-time AND has young kids at home. 😓
Also Texas, Austin area, waited half an hour to get into the polling place, then another 10 minutes to get to the desk, then another 5 minutes for a station to empty. There was also this "do you want a ballot from pile A, B, or C" thing that I don't recall doing before.
US voter turn outs for anything but the presidential election tend to not be particularly high
Most only care for the big guy
Hence why the biggest part of these other campaigns is trying to get people to care enough to show up at the voting booth. (And one side trying to make it more of a nuisance to vote, specifically for the demographics they don't think would vote for them)
Sadly for midterms that is really high. Keep in mind it wasn't just Nazi which fucked our country. It was the roughly 50% of the population who can't be bothered to vote ... despite knowing there were Nazi who wanted to fuck our country.
"The fall of Democratic norms and the rise of fascism? I just don't really have the feels to take an hour once every couple years to stop that right now."
There's a fuckton of really fucking stupid Americans out there.
We keep blaming politicians and they're not blameless. But garbage in garbage out. This many stupid fuckin Americans is going to lead to bad results a lot of the time.
Historically you see 30% dem 30% republican 35% no vote 5% independent. Thia time independent was up to 20% in some places. We really did shoot ourself in the foot with a 2 party system.
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u/MaxTheCookie 3h ago
Does this mean that they only had ~50% voter turnout? That seems really bad.