Early voting for the Nov. 8 Elections starts today, October 24, and will continue until Friday, November 4. During this time Texas voters will head to the polls to decide on statewide and local candidates. There are over 15 million Texans registered to vote in the November election, an all-time record for the state, but it is still unknown how the increase in registrations will impact voters going to the polls.
Another unknown variable is how races at the top of the ballot will impact down ballot. In addition to the U.S. President election at the top of the ballot, voters across the state will elect members of U.S. House, Texas Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeals, Railroad Commission, State Board of Education and Texas Senate and Texas House. Below is a spotlight on many of those races with major party opposition.
RRC
There is one open seat election for the position of Texas Railroad Commissioner between Grady Yarbrough (D) and Wayne Christian (R). The Texas Railroad Commission has a total of three members.
SBOE
The Texas State Board of Education has 15 members who serve four-year terms of which eight seats are on this year’s ballot. Two are open seats; six Republican incumbents are seeking re-election to the board and three of those incumbents are facing major party opposition.
U.S. Senate & House
Texas has 36 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and all but two of the incumbents are seeking re-election this year. 25 incumbents will have major party opposition.
Neither of the state’s two U.S. Senate seats is on the ballot this time.
Texas Senate
Sixteen of the state Senate’s 31 seats are on this year’s ballot, including three open seats and in three of the races incumbents are facing major-party challengers. Senate membership will also include 6 second-term senators and 8 third-term senators.
The current partisan makeup of the Senate is 20 Republicans and 11 Democrats.
Texas House
All 150 seats in the Texas House are on this year’s ballot. The membership of the Texas House will include at least 23* freshmen. Six incumbents were defeated in the primaries, 17 members did not seek re-election, and Rep. Dawnna Dukes plans to resign in January. House membership will also include 26* second-term members and 35* third-term members. The number of freshmen in the House could also increase based on the outcomes of the 46 races in which incumbents are facing major-party challengers.
The current partisan makeup of the House is 99 Republicans, 50 Democrats and 1 Independent.
*Members who returned to the House after not serving for a session or more are not included in these numbers.
A complete list of candidates in the 2016 state wide races can be found on the Texas Tribune site.