2020 General Election Face-off Booklet
Who is facing off in Texas’ November elections?
2020 Primary & Primary Runoff Recap:
This past March, over 4.1 million Texans voted in our state’s primary elections to choose who will stand for each party in November. With many of those contests unsettled, Texans visited the voting booths again in July for the primary runoff elections to choose between the top two finishers in races in which no candidate received more than 50% of the vote.
However, just as the early voting period began in the runoffs, COVID-19 began resurging across the state. Political spectators then viewed the pending results as a test to see what voting conditions and turnout could look like in the general election, especially during these unprecedented times.
What was primary turnout compared to the last presidential election cycle in 2016?
Of the approximate 16.2 million Texans registered to vote, about 25% voted in the March 2020 primaries, and was only slightly less than the total turnout in the 2016 primary election.
While Texas Republican voters have historically out-participated Democrat voters, this year Democrats turned out to the poll at slightly greater numbers. In fact, 658,533 more Democrats voted in the 2020 primary election than in 2016, representing a nearly 32% increase in participation. A still spirited race for the Democratic presidential nomination, plus a high-profile race for U.S. Senate, were assuredly two driving factors for the increase.
With the GOP presidential nominee not in question as it was in 2016, Republican participation saw a decline of 819,321 voters in 2020 over 2016, representing a nearly 29% drop.
Historically, an even smaller percentage of registered voters participate in runoff elections. However, despite the concerns among Texans of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 955,700 Democrats voted in their party’s runoff, which would decide their nominee for U.S. Senate and many down-ballot races. This total is nearly double the amount in the 2018 election, which featured extra innings to decide their party’s nominee for Governor.
Without a hotly contested statewide race for a highly visible office (e.g. governor, senator, etc), the Republican runoff did not garner as much attention.
So, with all that settled, who is facing off in November?
In the 2020 election, the following state offices are up for election:
All in all, there are over 180 races in Texas that will be determined this November. To see exactly who is facing off in the upcoming general election, Public Blueprint has created an easy to review, one-stop booklet, complete with a list of all candidates in the contested races for house, senate, and statewide positions in Texas.
Public Blueprint sourced data from campaign finance reports, candidate websites, and public databases to help you better understand who is running in the upcoming 2020 general election. Complete with each candidate’s personal and professional bio, political affiliation, incumbent status, known endorsement(s), political consultant(s), and more—you’ll find everything you need to know in one easy download.
And one final note to candidates: if anything is inaccurate or you have any concerns, please reach out to our firm at [email protected]. The team at Public Blueprint worked hard over months to gather this data from the best available sources, but we are far from perfect and want everything to be as accurate as possible.
