No Blue Texas Wave: Ted Cruz Received More Votes than Entire Democrat Turnout

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) received more votes in the 2018 Republican Primary election than the entire turnout of voters in the Democratic Primary. The results shed a new perspective on the media-hyped “blue wave” stories from the weeks leading up to election day.

In the Republican Primary of 2018, Senator Cruz received 1,317,450 votes in a race with four challengers. His Democrat opponent, U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke only received 641,311 votes against two opponents.

Figures from the Secretary of State’s office show that just over one million voters turned out in the Democratic Primary in general across Texas. Cruz alone exceeded the entire Democratic voter turnout by nearly 300,000 votes.

Last week, Texas Secretary of State Spokesman Sam Tayler told Breitbart Texas that in normal gubernatorial primary elections, about 10 percent of registered voters turn out in the Republican primary and five percent in the Democratic primary. At that time, he predicted, based on early voting numbers, that Democrats would match the Republican’s 10 percent turnout. Instead, Democrats fell short on election day. Republican voters slightly exceeded their normal voter turnout with about 11 percent of registered voters coming to their polls. Democrats also raised their turnout, but only to 6.8 percent arrived.

The race for Texas Governor yielded similar numbers. Governor Greg Abbott received 1,392,294 votes in a field of three candidates while the Democrats split among nine. Just over one million voters cast their ballots in the Democratic gubernatorial race. Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez received 436,658 votes while her main opponent, Houston businessman Andrew White received 278,702 votes. The two Democrats will face off in a May 22 runoff.

In the leadup to election day, media outlets hyped the early voting turnout numbers as a harbinger of doom for Texas Republicans.

On Tuesday, CNN asked in a headline, “Can a Blue Wave Take Down Ted Cruz in Texas?” Fourteen hours later, the network answered it’s own question. “Democrat Turnout Could Signal a Blue Wave in November — But Not in Texas,” the new headline stated.

The Dallas Morning News also questioned the legitimacy of the Texas blue wave. The newspaper asked in a headline, “Breaking Down the Texas Primaries: How Real is the Democrats’ Blue Wave?”

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick responded to the media hype regarding the “blue wave.”

“We have been hearing for weeks in Texas and across the country that a great “blue wave” was coming to Texas,” Patrick said. “We were assaulted with predictions that our great state is trending Democrat. But the votes have been counted and we know that so-called “blue wave” never made landfall. 1.5 million Republicans voted and barely a million Democrats turned out. Texas is a bright red state with an engaged conservative majority who are committed to keeping Texas on a conservative path.”

There is still cause for concern for Texas Republicans. Democrats increased their gubernatorial election year turnout by nearly 40 percent over 2014 numbers. This added nearly 300,000 Democratic voters to their database which will be used for efforts to turn out voters in November.

In Harris County, Democrat voters exceeded the number of Republican voters as the state’s largest county continues its trend from purple to blue.