AUSTIN -- Friday is your last chance to join more than 20,000 Travis County residents who have voted early in the March primary.
While the total sounds impressive, political campaigns have been scouring the turnout totals for insight into the electorate; according to the data, the Republican race for governor is drawing out voters from both parties as well as independents.
During the final drive to primary election day, plenty of voters like Sergio Villarreal are showing up to cast their vote early.
“I didn’t want to hesitate. I wanted to get my vote in,” Villarreal explained.
According to the Travis County clerk's election division, the Randall’s grocery store on Research Boulevard at Braker Lane has seen more early voters than any other location in Travis County.
The George Washington Carver Museum in East Austin hosts an early voting site as well. It's been the least used early voting location in Travis County.
All told, more than 22,265 voters in Travis County have cast ballots early; that's nearly 3.81 percent of registered voters, according to county records.
While campaigns and consultants pay attention early voting numbers, they're more interested in who votes, rather than just how many.
“People spend millions of dollars on advertising to try to get them to go where the action is and to get them to pull for them,” said Political Strategist Jeffrey Smith, Ph.D., Austin-based Opinion Analysts, Inc.
Many of the urban, early voters in the Texas Republican primary, voted as Democrats in the 2008 battle between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, according to data Smith analyzed.
“They were attracted in 2008 by a hot presidential race and in 2010 by a hot governor’s race,” Smith said. "It raises the question: Who were these people that in 2008 were Democrats and then they're Republicans?"
One answer: these could be true, independent voters who are interested in politics, turned-off by partisanship and hard for campaigns to court, Smith explained.
