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Collin County House seats at center of GOP turmoil
Governor Greg Abbott was in Collin County on Wednesday, where we saw a "Republican civil war" unfolding. The governor was campaigning for candidates who Attorney General Ken Paxton has targeted.
Friday is the final day of early voting in Texas for the March 5 election and, so far, Republicans have shown up in big numbers.
More than 913,000 Republicans early voted through Thursday, compared to more than 795,000 in the 2020 election.
Rice University political scientist Mark Jones says Joe Biden and Donald Trump are not driving voters to the polls because it is more or less a formality.
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Jones calls it a "bottom up" turnout because of so many GOP contested races.
"It's been at least 30 or 40 years since we've had this level of competition in primaries, and what's really unprecedented is that you're seeing the governor, the lieutenant governor, the attorney general get heavily involved, and even the GOP presidential candidate, Donald Trump, getting involved, normally you do not see that," he said.
There is also influence from Gov. Abbott and Ken Paxton backing opposite candidates.
"We've never had this level of competition," said Jones.
Jones says there has also been an unprecedented amount of money spent in the Texas House races.
"By the time the dust clears we're going to be well over $20-25 million in these Republican primaries, perhaps even more than that," he said.
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When it comes to Democrats, turnout is a bit low compared to 2020.
Jones says it is because there are fewer big contested races outside of the U.S. Senate race with Dallas Congressman Colin Allred and State Senator Roland Gutierrez.
"The average Democratic voter really doesn't have a competitive race to vote in," Jones said.
Election Day will be Tuesday, March 5.