Tarrant County’s 2026 Primary: Democrats Are Showing Up

Four Days of Primary Early Voting

Four days into early voting in Tarrant County’s 2026 primaries, something is definitely happening: Democrats are turning out in historic numbers, and the composition of who’s showing up tells a story worth paying attention to.

The Turnout Gap Has Flipped

For years, Tarrant County’s Republican primary dominated early vote totals. In every cycle from 2018 through 2024, GOP primary voters outnumbered Democrats by a wide margin. In 2026, that pattern has completely reversed. After four days of early voting, Democrats have cast 38,652 ballots compared to 30,046 for Republicans — a nearly 9,000-vote advantage. For context, just two years ago after four days, Democrats trailed Republicans 8,960 to 22,893. This isn’t a small shift. It’s a complete reversal.

One Party Is Showing Its Age

Look at who’s casting the ballots in the Republican Primary. The picture is stark: 65.2% of GOP primary early voters are 65 or older, with just 1.4% coming from the 18-29 age group. The Republican primary electorate is, quite literally, elder-dominated. The Democratic primary, while also leaning older (39.5% are 65+), shows a much more distributed age profile. 18% are from the 30-44 bracket and 6.8% from younger voters. Democrats aren’t young, but Republicans are genuinely “old”, and that gap has long-term implications.

Forget the Crossover Myth

One narrative you’ll hear is that Democratic enthusiasm numbers are being inflated by Republicans crossing over to vote in the Democratic primary. One take has them voting for a certain candidate because they like them, another has them voting for the other candidate because they think they can beat them. Neither plays out in reality, as the vote history data simply doesn’t support that. A full 85% of Republican primary voters have an R-primaries-only history. On the Democratic side, 64% are consistent Democratic primary voters. People with a history of voting only in the opposite party’s primary, well, it’s just about a rounding error, with R’s at around 3%, D’s at 0.7%. There is some combo voting, where people have history in both, but neither are a major piece of the pie. And we aren’t even delving into the Voter Scores here. This is purely voting history and it is pretty clear.

What is notable on the Democratic side is that 23% of their early voters only have general election history, and another 3.1% have no voting history at all. That’s roughly one in four Democratic primary voters who are either brand new to primaries or new to voting altogether. That’s not crossover. That’s expansion, and it’s a very different and arguably more meaningful phenomenon.

What It Means

These are early numbers, and four days of early voting don’t tell the whole story of a primary. But the combination of record Democratic turnout, a Republican electorate that is aging without replacement, and a Democratic coalition that is pulling in new and sporadic voters rather than relying on party-switchers.

It’s a set of trends that should have people paying close attention to Tarrant County in 2026. Let’s see if we can keep it up.

And, this is my first take on something like this. Would you like additional recaps of where we are in the Primary as we go?

See It. Name It. Fight It.