political writer
In what was billed the most consequential election of our time, voter turnout in Dallas County fell flat.
Politicians, activists and voting rights advocates expected the presidential election to spark higher voter participation in the state’s second-largest county. Instead, Dallas County fizzled, placing eighth among the state’s 10 largest counties by registered voters.
Turnout among Democrats was a major drag. More than 610,000 of Dallas County’s eligible voters skipped the election, including about 213,000 casual voters who leaned Democratic, one analyst estimated.
The poor performance raises doubts about Democratic prospects for challenging Republican dominance in Texas.
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“I’ve seen a cycle in which we’ve lost a point or so in turnout,” said Jeff Dalton, a Democratic Party consultant who analyzed the 2024 general election. “I’ve never seen a cycle where we’ve lost performance, where our margin of victory has dropped in Dallas County, in my whole career.”
Democratic strategist Matt Angle said Democrats also lost some voters who rarely miss an election. “Hard-core” Democrats typically vote at a 90% rate, he said, but in 2024 that number dropped to 83% in Dallas County.
“That’s thousands and thousands of voters staying home,” Angle said. “What you saw in Dallas was an amplified version of what you saw for Democrats around the country. It was a failure to turn out what we call the hard base.”
The turnout totals are part of a disturbing trend for Democrats. Dallas County is home to Democrat Colin Allred, who needed robust turnout in the Dallas area to have any hope of upsetting Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred lost by 8.5 percentage points in a race that some pollsters said was within 4 points.
Democrats also dropped seven of eight seats and their majority on the Dallas-based 5th Court of Appeals.
If Democratic turnout in Dallas County remains stagnant or regresses, the party won’t be able to compete in statewide or regional races and will essentially forfeit political control of Texas to Republicans.
“We lost the court of appeals for the most part, and Colin Allred and Kamala Harris weren’t even competitive at all in their statewide races,” said Dalton, who managed the campaigns of Democrats running for appellate posts. “We’re not going to get anywhere statewide unless Dallas County performs at a maximum level, and this was a backslide in every way possible.”
According to the Dallas County Elections Department, voter turnout in Dallas County was 58.4%. That’s down from the 66% turnout in 2020 and the 59.4% in 2016, Donald Trump’s first run for the White House. The 2024 turnout was the lowest in Dallas County since 49.4% in 2000, when the county was red and George W. Bush was running for the White House.
Dallas County Democratic Party Chairman Kardal Coleman acknowledged the struggle.
“There were a number of folks who sat this one out. We heard from people who were just not inspired to come out,” Coleman said.
“Here locally, we tried our best to amplify our messaging and to make sure that we were putting forth the Democratic banner everywhere we could. One of the things that I think that we’ve heard locally is that our messaging wasn’t right,” he said.
Dallas County Republican Party Chairman Allen West said conservative messages related to public safety, border security, the economy and education were effective.
“We definitely had an enthusiastic message that we could deliver, and I think that the other side did not,” West said.
Coleman said Dallas Democrats will spend January on a listening tour to figure out ways to curb voter apathy.
There are some theories on what happened in November.
Some Democrats think President Joe Biden’s unpopularity doomed the party, even before he stepped aside and Vice President Kamala Harris became the presidential nominee.
“When we knocked on doors and talked to voters, the No. 1 issue that they cared about was the economy and finances and how they were going to be able to pay their bills and put food on the table,” Coleman said, adding that interaction with primary election voters revealed Biden was a problem.
Coleman doesn’t believe the Democratic Party’s focus on restoring abortion rights and protecting democracy was a priority for most voters, even among the party’s base.
“We’ve kind of got to get back to being the party that focuses on the kitchen table issues,” Coleman said. “Issues like access to affordable health care as a basic human right, and also housing and education.”
Angle said Democrats should explore better voter outreach tactics instead of relying on going door-to-door, which has become less effective.
“Some of the things that Democrats have been doing are somewhat antiquated in terms of the way that our voters receive information,” he said. “I think, particularly, it’s this almost religious or ideological belief that we need to knock on more doors, rather than think about what is the best way to actually have a conversation with that voter.”
Angle said outreach could include canvassing neighborhoods, phone banks and engaging voters through their peers. And many Democrats concede that President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans have become more dominant in the social and alternative media space.
“Democrats have to be more creative and be a little bit more expansive in our thinking,” Angle added.
Republicans attacked Democrats on transgender issues, including gender affirming care for minors and transgender athletes in sports. Democratic candidates, worried about offending parts of their coalition, struggled to respond or explain their positions to voters.
Dalton said he polled Democrats who skipped the election to find out what caused them to sit out. It was an age-old situation — the economy and their livelihoods — that moved them.
“They basically said, ‘We’re done with the Democratic Party. We don’t trust the party,’” Dalton said. “They said, ‘We don’t trust the Democratic Party any more than we trust the Republican Party.’ It was pretty depressing.”
Another factor analysts believe dampened turnout was the lack of competitive races in Dallas County.
Only two Texas House races were considered competitive, but Democratic hopes of unseating Republican Reps. Morgan Meyer of University Park and Angie Chen Button of Richardson were dashed when the incumbents easily won. There also was very little activity in the North Texas congressional districts, which in 2021 were drawn to discourage competition against incumbents.
Without competitive races, there was no money or machinery in down-ballot races to propel turnout.
Coleman said that while the local party failed with some tried and true voters, the campaign to lure infrequent voters to the polls had some success. He said party leaders were still going over the data but believed there was an increase in first-time and infrequent voters who participated in the election.
“I have to admit, there are cracks in our base,” Coleman said. “And there are a number of individuals who decided to vote for Donald Trump, and so we have to make sure that we’re talking to everybody in our party.”
Republican political consultant Ross Hunt said his analysis found 83% turnout among voters with a history of participating in the Democratic primary. The turnout among GOP primary voters was 87%.
But there are far more Democrats in the county than Republicans.
“Dallas County remains solidly blue, but low turnout among all Democratic primary voters relative to Republicans is a warning sign to Democratic partisans that their priorities do not resonate with many independent voters who eschew participation in the party primaries and only vote in the general election,” Hunt said.
Aaron Ceder, once chief of staff for former Dallas County Commissioner J.J. Koch, agreed Dallas County Republicans made progress in 2024.
“There’s definitely room to grow for the Republicans if we focus on the proper message,” Ceder said. “That’s always been kitchen table topics, including how we improve the economy, create jobs and control inflation. Those are things that make a difference in people’s lives, and if the Republicans in Dallas County focus on those issues, we will have turned a corner.”
Democrats are left to hope for better days.
“The bigger concern to me is the failure of our most reliable voters to show up in sufficient numbers,” Angle said. “The upside of that is that we should be able to go back and get those voters. Those aren’t people who are going to ever be Republicans. Those are people who become disillusioned and they’ve lost confidence.”
State Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, said he was concerned about November’s outcome but still hopeful. He said midterm elections are difficult for the party in power, so Trump may take some losses in 2026. In Trump’s first term, Democrats made gains in Texas in 2018, including picking up 12 Texas House seats — 10 in North Texas.
“We recognize that this was a disappointing loss, but just like anything else, the pendulum swings back and forth,” West said.
The Howard University graduate and Chicago native has covered four presidential campaigns and written extensively about local, state and national politics. Before The News, he was a reporter at The Kansas City Star and The Chicago Defender. You can catch Gromer every Sunday at 8:30 a.m. on NBC 5's Lone Star Politics.
