i THINK so far its a really good indicator.

last count i see is that 6.4 million people have already voted in texas through 10/22. in 2016 8.97 million people voted in total. 4.5 million voted early.

of course theres no guarantee that dems have the advantage but it is likely. the other thing is since mail-in wasnt extended there isnt a lot to contest. i still worry the GOP will try to contest the extra week of voting but lets just hope not.

one number i have heard that i think really doesnt mean much is that 2 million more people registered in texas. well texas voting age population increased by 2.3 million too. i guess getting near 100% registration on those new potential voters is good though. it still leaves the percentage of registered voters basically the same 78.2% in 2016 vs 78.5% in 2020.

the big question is what will total turn-out look like. it was 58.4% in 2016. the same rate would mean 10 million people will vote in 2020.

so 6.4 million already voted would be 63.4% of the potential 10 million that would vote. compared to 50% that voted early in 2016. i THINK that indicates that turnout is increasing. we're not even done with early voting and turnout is 13.4 points higher than it was in 2016 for early voting. so if that rate holds, 50% early voting turnout were looking at over 12.5 million people voting in texas, at minimum.

of course it could be that turnout on voting day is ridiculous low too. important thing is to keep telling people to go out and vote.