By LYNETTE SOWELL
Cove Leader-Press
With the Primary election day over and a number of local candidates headed to Republican Party runoffs, Coryell County voters made their wishes known – both Republican and Democrat.
In Coryell County, the only Democrat filings for local offices were for that of party chair for Coryell County, and for voting precinct chairs. None of the other elected positions for county offices had any Democratic candidates.
On the voting side of things, Texas voters do not register by political party, they simply select a party ballot during the primary election.
The primary election in March is a way for political parties to narrow the field for the November election.
However, in Coryell County the March primary has, in recent years, been the deciding election for all candidate races.
This year, with multiple candidates in not just county, but state and national races for both parties, local voter turnout seemed to spike amid the frenzy of multiple candidates campaigning and it may have seemed that voter turnout was larger.
However, voter turnout altogether on Tuesday wasn’t as high as the 2020 primary, falling short of that number by 26 votes.
The 2020 primary saw a higher turnout from Coryell County voters than 2026 – 9,695 to be exact, compared to Tuesday’s turnout of 9,669.
Since 2016, Republican primary turnout in Coryell County has been up and down, a low of 5,048 voters in 2018 and a high of 7,868 in 2016 – 1,181 voters more than in Tuesday’s election.
Comparatively, Democratic turnout at the polls has been up and down, with a low of 906 in 2018.
However, Tuesday’s total of 2,985 Coryell County Democratic voters is the highest in 10 years – and three times that of the party’s turnout in 2018.
On election day, more than 2,400 voters selected the Republican party ballot, and just over 1,100 county voters selected the Democratic party ballot.
Primary election numbers for Republicans totaled 6,684 out of 45,812 registered voters and Democratic voters numbered 2,985 out of the 45,812. Overall voter turnout was 21.12% of the county registered voters.
Both parties have their focus set on the May 26 primary runoff election, which is more than eight weeks away. The first day of early voting for the runoff is Monday, May 18.
“All registered voters are eligible to vote in the runoff,” said Justin Carothers, Coryell County Election Administrator. “For those voters that voted in the primary, they must vote in the same party’s runoff.”
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