• gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    68·
    26 days ago

    I’m absolutely not going to bank on it, but holy shit, can you imagine the shitshow in the GOP if Texas goes blue? Like… jesus. I think that’d actually sink the modern GOP entirely.

    • WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]@lemmy.today
      47·
      26 days ago

      Its been sorta expected to happen eventually. Texas is only not a swing state because of things like voter suppression. There’s only 6 states with worse turnout than Texas. If Texas had the turnout of Minnesota, it might just be a blue state.

  • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
    681·
    26 days ago

    Intended to vote yesterday, but something came up and I couldn’t. Voted today. Longest lines I’ve seen at a polling place for early voting.

    I know it’s anecdote, but I’m hopeful.

    • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
      251·
      26 days ago

      Mine was really long too, and was full of a lot of women there on their own. I hope that the taking of their autonomy and rights was enough to get a lot of them out there to boost our numbers.

      • baldingpudenda@lemmy.world
        2·
        26 days ago

        Huh, everytime Ive early voted, the lines have been minimal. Voted yesterday and there was no line, but plenty of ppl voting. When I had to vote during election day it was 45 minutes.

  • Gerudo@lemm.ee
    29·
    26 days ago

    I voted yesterday and it was crazy busy. The absolute busiest early voting I’ve ever seen.

  • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
    24·
    26 days ago

    A bit worrying to hear so many stories of lines for early voting. I get how it’s also a good sign, but… It shouldn’t really be necessary to wait in line? If it’s bad already, won’t election day be a disaster? Are lines equally long in Republican areas?

    • moakley@lemmy.worldEnglish
      34·
      26 days ago

      A few years back the GOP closed a bunch of polling places in blue areas. It’s flagrant voter suppression.

    • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
      18·
      26 days ago

      My wife waited an hour and a friend of hers waited 2 hours to vote. She also heard several stories of people passing out in line. It’s disgraceful. This is absolutely driving down participation. I’m sure the state GOP would even say if you can’t stand in a line for over an hour while it’s sunny and high 80s maybe you just don’t care about voting that much.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9·
        26 days ago

        Ugh. I’m always so thankful that Colorado has had mail-in voting for so long.

        It should be mandated at the Federal level that every state is this free. A voting system that works to actively discourage voting is a disgrace to this nation.

    • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
      101·
      26 days ago

      There are usually fewer early voting locations compared to election day so with record turnout, the lines have been longer

      Republican areas tend to be less densely populated, so the number of people to voting locations ratio makes lines there generally less long

    • COASTER1921@lemmy.ml
      2·
      26 days ago

      Personally I’ve never had any issues with lines despite living in a heavily blue district. It’s worth noting that as election day gets closer more early voting locations open, voting the first day of early voting sounds like a bad idea in terms of lines. Obviously this isn’t going to be the case for every district, but when only a handful of places are open for the first day of early voting it’s inevitable they’ll be packed.

      I personally have bigger issues with the fact that the majority of polling locations are churches and that political signage is allowed outside of them.

    • TipRing@lemmy.worldEnglish
      27·
      26 days ago

      States don’t vote in a vacuum, in any scenario where Trump loses Texas he also loses closer states.

      • Makeitstop@lemmy.worldEnglish
        20·
        26 days ago

        To expand on this slightly, if Harris wins Texas, that plus the blue states puts her at 266. Any one swing state would be enough to put her past 270, even Nevada which has only 6 electoral votes. So unless Trump can flip a blue state, he would have to win all the swing states.

        While that scenario isn’t impossible, it’s extremely unlikely that Texas would have such a huge and unexpected surge for the Democrats while they are simultaneously having a disastrous performance everywhere else. It’s not like the Harris campaign has been dumping all of its resources into Texas, quite the opposite.

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
      121·
      26 days ago

      Short answer is yes. We don’t need a marginal difference, we need to be blue in lots of swing states.

  • mkwt@lemmy.world
    243·
    26 days ago

    Democratic voters in Texas expect to find dirty tricks and voter suppression when they come out to vote. So they want to complete the process earlier, to leave them some backup and contingency options.

    This doesn’t necessarily mean that Texas is about to flip on this cycle.

  • thefartographer@lemm.ee
    191·
    26 days ago

    I went to vote yesterday and found a line wrapped around the building which usually has a line of only 10-20 people out the door. I’ll have to try again tomorrow, but wow!

  • COASTER1921@lemmy.ml
    141·
    26 days ago

    We’re not possibly going to flip but hopefully with abortion now restricted we’ll be closer to a swing state than in quite a while. The biggest problem is how heavily gerrymandered the state is, there are some crazy looking districts to get some parts of urban areas to vote red. A simple majority of votes really won’t do it in the state of Texas.

      • DokPsy@lemmy.world
        8·
        26 days ago

        Don’t give me hope. I mean, yeah, I voted for Allred today but still. It’s a lot closer of an election than it should be considering how Cruz has acted during his tenure

    • GlendatheGayWitch@lemmy.world
      6·
      26 days ago

      You can’t gerrymander a statewide election like US Senator or President. Those are total number of votes across all voters in the state. The state senators and representatives are definitely gerrymandering.

      It’s also possible for Texas to go blue this election. Hillary needed 800,000 votes (5% of the registered voters) and Biden needed 630,000 votes (3.5% of the registered voters). It’s been really close the last couple presidential elections and Beto was really close to ousting Cruz in 2018.

      Don’t forget, Biden won more votes in TX than he did in NY and Trump received less votes in TX than CA in 2020. We can definitely flip this year, we just need a large turnout. Historically speaking, Dems win with large voter turnout out and we are breaking records this year.

    • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world
      2·
      26 days ago

      thats something that should have zero relevance in any election. if you live within a hundred miles of a post you should be able to vote on that post regardless if your “district” is outside of it

    • taiyang@lemmy.world
      12·
      26 days ago

      About 640k votes, 46.5% to 52.1%. It’s a tough hurdle, as he won that same percentage in 2016, although Clinton only had 43.5% and a third party probably ate some of Trump’s votes.

      He’ll likely win, but by less. Its a pretty big margin, even if Trump openly pisses on military graves while Harris is a proud owner of a glock.

      • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
        11·
        26 days ago

        Note that the Senate race was closer last time in 2018 and is also closer in the polls. In 2018 that was 50.9% Cruz to 48.4% Beto (2.5% margin, ~200k votes)

        • taiyang@lemmy.world
          5·
          26 days ago

          That’s certainly true. You know, if Texas does flip for Harris I won’t just be overjoyed, I’ll have to reevaluate the whole state (which isn’t Texas fault; literally, all my exes are from Texas-- heartbreak can certainly sour a state!)

      • GlendatheGayWitch@lemmy.world
        4·
        26 days ago

        Clinton lost by 800,000 votes (5% of registered voters) and Biden by 640,000 votes(3.5% of registered voters). It has been getting much closer. We could flip this year if voter turnout keeps this pace.

  • Today@lemmy.world
    5·
    26 days ago

    I voted yesterday about 630 in Denton county. We waited in line for about 10 minutes. My kids voted in Addison yesterday - no line.

  • SlippiHUD@lemmy.worldEnglish
    24·
    26 days ago

    My concern with early voting is it’ll make it easier for them to target democratic voters, especially if the numbers are that skewed.

      • SlippiHUD@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        26 days ago

        Republicans who’ve been mobilizing to challenge ballots and election outcomes for months. Who have for years, been unashamed, to target and diminish democratic voting power. Who seem all but ready to destroy democracy and install Donald Trump as king.

        • Takumidesh@lemmy.world
          3·
          26 days ago

          What does early voting have to do with this though?

          What is it about a ballot cast now that is more vulnerable than one cast on November 5th

          • SlippiHUD@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            26 days ago

            I’m just concerned. MAGA is going to ratfuck this election, wherever they think they can get away with it, and I’m just concerned that democrats are voting in easy to identify patterns that can be targeted.