EL PASO, Texas — Voters in El Paso County head to the polls on Tuesday 3 November with the county already on pace for a record midterm turnout, after an early voting period that shattered the benchmarks set in previous midterm elections. After 11 days of early voting, more than 137,900 ballots had been cast in person and nearly 7,650 by mail, according to the county Elections Department — a combined total approaching 146,000 before a single Election Day ballot was counted. Election officials say the surge puts the county on track to surpass its previous midterm turnout record, set in 2018, although the final figure will depend on how many voters turn out on Election Day itself.
Polls are open countywide on Election Day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and El Paso County voters may cast their ballots at any voting site in the county, not only the one nearest their home. Early voting results will be announced at 7 p.m., with election-night results rolling in after that as Election Day ballots are counted. This article sets out what is on the ballot, which races to watch, and how the night is expected to unfold. It deliberately reports no results: at the time of writing, no Election Day results have been called, and early voting totals are turnout figures, not votes for any candidate. Any result reported from El Paso on election night must come from the county’s official returns, not from turnout enthusiasm or pre-election polls.
The scale of the early vote is itself the story so far. El Paso’s previous midterm high came in 2018, when a competitive Senate race drove turnout to levels the county had never seen in a midterm year. This year’s early vote has already run ahead of that pace. County elections officials credit voter energy and an unusually crowded, high-profile ballot, while local party leaders on both sides have claimed the surge as evidence of enthusiasm for their candidates. Those competing interpretations are politics, not arithmetic: high turnout tells us how many people voted, not how they voted, and El Paso County’s final results will not be known until the ballots are counted.
El Paso election day: record early voting sets the stage
In-person early voting ran from 19 to 30 October 2026, and the county Elections Department reported record-breaking participation almost from the start. The opening day alone topped the first-day midterm record set in 2018, and the pace never slowed: after 11 days, the in-person total had passed 137,900, with nearly 7,650 mail ballots returned on top of that. Elections information coordinator Melissa Martin said voter participation in both ballots cast and mail ballots returned continued to break records, and expressed hope that the county would surpass the 2018 midterm, while cautioning that final turnout would depend on Election Day participation.
For context, the 2018 midterm has long been El Paso’s turnout benchmark, driven by a Senate contest that energised voters across the region. The county’s elections administrator has previously said she expects turnout in the range seen in 2018, and the early voting numbers suggest that expectation was, if anything, conservative. More than 537,000 voters are registered in El Paso County, after more than 10,000 new voters registered since the May primary runoff, and the county opened 39 early voting locations for the two-week early period. On Election Day, voters can use any voting site in the county, a countywide system that removes the risk of turning up at the wrong polling place.
Officials also reported that there were no irregularities throughout the early voting session, a point worth stating plainly in an election year when claims about voting problems travel faster than corrections. The county’s system — early results released at 7 p.m., Election Day results rolling in through the night — means that the first numbers El Pasoans see on election night will be the early vote, which in past cycles has sometimes leaned differently from the Election Day vote. That is a normal feature of counting, not a sign of anything amiss, and close local races may not be decided until late in the evening or beyond.
The Texas Senate race topping the ballot
The headline race for El Paso voters is the contest for the United States Senate between Republican Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, and Democrat James Talarico, a state representative. The seat is being vacated by outgoing Senator John Cornyn, and the winner will join Texas’s Senate delegation in Washington at a moment when the chamber’s balance of power is itself being decided nationwide. Talarico closed his campaign with a rally at the University of Texas at El Paso’s Magoffin Auditorium, where supporters urged voters to push his early vote total past 100,000 in El Paso County alone, while Paxton made his own final campaign stop in the city. Pre-election polling had shown a competitive race, but polls are not results, and this article reports no outcome for the Senate contest until the votes are counted and called.
The Senate race matters to El Paso for reasons beyond party politics. The border city lives daily with federal policy on immigration, trade, and cross-border commerce, and its next senator will vote on all of it. Paxton, as attorney general, has been one of the most prominent Republican legal figures in Texas, while Talarico has built a national profile as a young Democratic voice in the state legislature. Their contest has drawn national attention and national money, and El Paso’s vote is one piece of a statewide result that could take hours — or, if it is close, longer — to determine.
Also on the statewide ballot is the race for governor, pitting incumbent Republican Governor Greg Abbott against Democrat Gina Hinojosa. Abbott is seeking to extend a long Republican hold on the governor’s office, while Hinojosa, a former school board member and state legislator, has campaigned on education and public services. Other statewide contests on the El Paso ballot include lieutenant governor, where incumbent Republican Dan Patrick faces Democrat Vikki Goodwin, and attorney general, where Democrat Nathan Johnson faces Republican Mayes Middleton and Libertarian Tom Oxford. Voters will also decide three state representative seats, with incumbents Eddie Morales, Vince Perez and Claudia Ordaz all facing Republican challengers.
County judge and commissioners: local power on the ballot
Locally, the most consequential race may be the one for El Paso County Judge, the county’s chief executive office. Incumbent Democrat Ricardo Samaniego, who took office in January 2019, faces Republican challenger Minerva Torres-Shelton. The county judge presides over the Commissioners Court, sets much of the county’s agenda, and serves as its public face in emergencies and in dealings with state and federal government. Samaniego has faced little competition in previous cycles, but the recent ousting of two Democratic county commissioners, David Stout and Sergio Coronado, has been read by some local observers as a sign that voters are in a mood for change — a reading that, like all pre-result analysis, must wait for the returns to be tested.
Two County Commissioners Court seats are also on the ballot. In Precinct 2, Democrat Miguel Teran faces Republican Matt Sistrunk, and in Precinct 4, Democrat Annette Griego faces Republican Leo Arcos. Commissioners control the county budget, roads, and many local services, and their races often receive less attention than the contests at the top of the ticket, even though their decisions touch residents’ daily lives more directly. El Paso voters will also decide several judgeships, two congressional races, and school district contests, including trustee seats in Canutillo and Fabens and tax measures in the Socorro, Ysleta and Tornillo districts.
The two congressional races on the El Paso ballot are the District 16 seat, where Democratic incumbent Veronica Escobar faces Republican challenger Adam Bauman, and the District 23 seat covering the far east side, where Republican Brandon Herrera faces Democrat Katy Padilla Stout, with independent Ben Mendoza also on the ballot. Escobar’s seat has been reliably Democratic, while District 23 is one of the most geographically sprawling and politically contested districts in the state. Both results will feed into the national question of which party controls the House of Representatives.
Four City Council seats, and the prospect of December runoffs
Four seats on the El Paso City Council are also being decided, and these races carry their own wrinkle: because several of them have multiple candidates, they could head to a December runoff if no candidate wins an outright majority. In District 1, incumbent Alejandra Chavez faces three opponents. In District 5, incumbent Ivan Nino faces a single opponent, making that race a straight head-to-head contest. In District 6, incumbent Art Fierro faces four opponents, and in District 8, incumbent Chris Canales faces four opponents. In the multi-candidate races, the stage is set for runoffs in December if the leading candidate falls short of a majority — meaning election night may narrow the field rather than settle it.
City Council races are nonpartisan, but they are not low-stakes. Council members decide on streets, parks, water, development, and the city budget, and El Paso’s council has in recent years debated growth, infrastructure, and the cost of living in one of Texas’s largest border cities. Voters choosing a council member are choosing who will answer their calls about a broken streetlight or a delayed road project, and turnout in these down-ballot races is often where the difference between a record election and an ordinary one is made.
What should El Paso voters watch as results come in? First, the early voting totals released at 7 p.m., which will show the size of the early electorate but not its choices in any detail that permits calling races before Election Day ballots are counted. Second, the county judge and City Council contests, where runoffs could extend the story into December. Third, the statewide picture: El Paso’s contribution to the Senate and governor’s races will be read alongside returns from Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio, and a close statewide race could keep Texas watchers up late. And finally, the turnout record itself: if Election Day participation holds anywhere near the early voting pace, El Paso County will close the books on its biggest midterm electorate ever — a milestone that says something about civic engagement in the borderland regardless of which candidates win.
Sources
USN reviewed reporting from multiple outlets for this story. Read more from El Paso Times, El Paso Herald Post and Economic Times.