2020 United States presidential election in Texas

The Republican primary was held on March 3, 2020. Donald Trump and Bill Weld were declared Republican candidates. Former South Carolina Governor and U.S. Representative Mark Sanford and U.S. Representative Joe Walsh dropped out. Texas Governor Greg Abbott declined to run against Trump, as did 2016 Republican primary candidate and current senator Ted Cruz.[10][11]

This section is an excerpt from 2020 Texas Republican presidential primary[edit]

2020 Texas Republican Party presidential primary[12]
Candidate	Popular vote		Delegates
	Count	Percentage
Donald Trump	1,898,664	94.13%	117
Uncommitted	71,803	3.56%	0
Bill Weld	15,739	0.78%	0
Joe Walsh	15,824	0.78%	0
Rocky De La Fuente	7,563	0.38%	0
Bob Ely	3,582	0.37%	0
Matthew Matern	3,525	0.18%	0
Zoltan Istvan	1,447	0.07%	0
Total:	2,017,167	100%	155

The Democratic primary was held on March 3, 2020. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden were among the major declared candidates.[13][14][15]

Matters of election administration and ease of voting during an ongoing pandemic were heavily litigated in Texas in 2020. Harris County, the most populous one in Texas, spearheaded a number of innovative approaches and was the focal point of several legal challenges.

For the 2020 elections, Harris County Commissioners approved a budget of $33 million, higher than the $4 million budget for the 2016 United States presidential election. Chris Hollins, the interim Harris County Clerk and Texas Democratic Party finance vice chairperson, created a 23-point voting access expansion program, which included promotion of voting by mail, expansion of early voting accessibility, and drive-through voting, an innovation to facilitate voting while at the same time mitigating infection risks during the COVID-19 pandemic.[32] On October 29 several voting locations in Harris County were available for 24 hours to accommodate voters whose work shifts or other responsibilities overlapped with regular voting hours.[33]

Local Republican activists and officials challenged the voter-friendly measures in multiple legal actions, with mixed success. Several lawsuits complained about early voting and about Harris County providing multiple drop-off locations for absentee ballots. Responding to pressure from within his own party, Governor Abbott then restricted the number of drop-offs to a single one per county regardless of population and size, forcing Harris County to close eleven sites at county clerk branch offices called annexes.[34]

When a legal action challenging drive-through voting was dismissed,[32] the Republican Party in Texas sought relief in the Texas Supreme Court (SCOTX), which denied the petition because the case had not been brought promptly.[35] The first lawsuit was filed on October 15 even though Harris County had obtained prior clearance from the Office of the Texas Secretary of State (which is led a Republican appointed by Republican Governor Abbott) and had tested drive-in voting in the primary runoff elections in July without complaint.[36][37] SCOTX denied the petition and drive-thru voting continued.[38] On October 29 another action was filed seeking to invalidate drive-thru ballots based on the contention that this was a form of curbside voting that the Texas Election Code authorized only for voters with disabilities.[39] In an order issued on Sunday, November 1, the Texas Supreme Court denied the petition challenging the legality of drive-through voting, but did not resolve the legal argument one way or the other.[40][41] The next day, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen heard an almost identical case by the same group of plaintiff, which included Republican candidates, on an emergency basis. Slate described the judge as "one of the most notoriously partisan conservatives in the federal judiciary."[37] Hanen ruled against the plaintiffs, dismissing their action for lack of standing, with the result that drive-in voting remained in effect. The Plaintiffs, which included Steve Toth,[42] immediately sought emergency relief in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, but were unsuccessful.[43] Hollins nevertheless cancelled drive-thru voting in tent structures on the eve of Election Day.[44] He reversed himself out of concern that ballots cast there might be declared invalid, should the Fifth Circuit disagree with Judge Hanen on the standing issue and agree with Judge Hanen that tents were not permissible polling places on Election Day.[45]

Some counties also set up an online system that allowed voters to check for wait times at early voting centers and make their voting plans accordingly.[46]

On October 5, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a proclamation under the Texas Disaster Act limiting each county to a single drop-off location for mail ballots.[47] Federal judge Robert Pitman blocked Abbott's order on October 9.[48] The next day, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for an emergency stay of Pitman's ruling, which a three-judge motion panel temporarily granted on an interim basis, pending consideration of the appeal on the merits.[49] A Texas state judge also blocked Abbott's order on October 15, and a state appeals court upheld that decision on October 23. Attorney General Ken Paxton then sought emergency relief from the Texas Supreme Court, which backed the Governor and lifting the temporary injunction in an October 27 decision with no dissent.[50][51][52]

Voter registration in Texas ended on October 5, and the Secretary of State reported a registration total of 16,955,519 voters, an increase of 1,854,432 since the 2016 elections, and 1.2 million of which had occurred after the 2018 midterm elections.

Early voting began on October 13. Over one million ballots were received on that day,[53] and by October 15 fewer than two million ballots were counted.[54] The following day the count was 2.6 million, which meant 15.51% of the state's registered voters had already voted.[55]

For the whole early voting period, votes in the age 18-29 range were higher than the total of that age group of 2016, with 1.3 million votes.[56]

On October 13, Dallas County recorded 59,905 ballots and Tarrant County recorded 42,428 ballots, with the former setting a record for that county and the latter below the 2016 count on the first day of early voting.[57]

On October 13, Harris County had an unofficial tally of 128,186 ballots received, the highest ever first day early voting count and over 5% of the county's registered voters.[58] By the second day the count was 287,931, 11% of the county's registered voters.[59] On the third day over 100,000 ballots were counted, and in those three days 387,000 ballots were counted, with 44,000 of them issued through the mail.[60] On the fourth day a similar amount of ballots were past, which meant the number of ballots cast total were about 500,000.[61] On October 23 there were 1 million ballots cast from Harris County.[62]

On October 13, Travis County received 35,873 ballots,[63] while it received 38,119 the following day,[64] and by 3 P.M. on Thursday over 26,000.[65] When voting closed on Thursday the percentage of Travis County voters who had already voted was 16.44%. On Friday 41,328 additional votes were counted.[55] Williamson County by the third day had a 64,891 votes out of 376,931 people registered to vote, which meant its turnout was already 17.25%.[66]

On October 13, Bexar County recorded 78,000 votes, with over 45,000 by mail and the remainder in person.[53]

On October 13, El Paso County recorded fewer than 34,000 votes.[53]

By October 19, Texas voters cast 50% of the votes cast in the 2016 presidential election in Texas. By October 22, 65.5% of 2016 votes were cast (or 34.65% of registered voters). By October 25, over 80% of 2016 votes were cast (or 43% of registered voters),[67] and by October 29, 50% of registered voters had cast ballots by early in-person and absentee ballot. By October 30, statewide voter turnout, as well as turnout in Harris County, had already surpassed the total of 2016.[68]