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Fewer Texans, especially in the state’s largest cities, voted early this year compared to 2020, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of state data.

More than 9 million Texans voted in person during the two weeks of early voting or returned their absentee ballots by Nov. 1, state data shows. That’s 48.6% of all registered voters. In 2020, 9.7 million, or 57.2% of registered voters, went to the polls or turned in their ballot during the same period in 2020.

The delay is largely attributed to a drastic decline in mail-in voting. About 8.7 million Texans voted early in both 2020 and 2024. However, 937,870 Texans voted by mail in 2020, while 347,652 voted by mail this year.

Current data is not definitive and may be incomplete. Counties can accept mail-in ballots through Wednesday. And each county is responsible for self-reporting, and in some cases, counties don’t share their numbers or report late. And a direct comparison with early voting through 2020 carries an important caveat. Texans had three weeks to vote in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and only two weeks this year. And four years ago, there was also a greater emphasis on voting by mail.

Election day is Tuesday.

Despite the delay in participation, the total number of Texans who have voted is staggering. Beyond 2020, more people have already voted than the total number of people who voted in any previous presidential election, according to veteran consultant Derek Ryan, who publishes a must-read report on early voting.

Four years ago, more than 11 million Texans voted, a record for a state that has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the U.S.

Democratic turnout appears to have lagged during the early voting period, a trend first seen during the first three days of early voting.

Harris County Democratic Chairman Mike Doyle said turnout was good, but it’s not surprising that the county had less turnout this year than in 2020 due to the pandemic and the extra week of voting. Harris County, which includes Houston, is the most populous county in the state.

“It means we have some ambitious goals for tomorrow,” Doyle said. “But we’ve been going out pretty hard for a long time.”

Doyle is cautiously optimistic and said a good day for Democrats would be around 300,000 voters. He added that they expect approximately half a million additional voters in Harris County on Election Day.

This year, Democrats hoped to oust U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, the last attempt to end their decades-long streak of losing state elections. Texas’ rural and suburban counties have long been Republican strongholds that vote at a higher rate than the state’s urban centers like Dallas, Austin and Houston.

Ryan, a Republican campaign adviser, said Democrats would need to see an increase in turnout in the five most populous counties on Election Day to win a statewide election.

“President Biden got 59% in those five counties four years ago, but he only got 25% of the vote in the most rural counties in the state,” Ryan said.

As of Monday, 58 solid red counties and six border counties surpassed their 2020 turnout record. Zapata County, home to about 8,000 people south of Laredo, saw the largest increase in its turnout rate: 14 percentage points.

No rapidly changing counties, like Colin County in North Texas, or big blue counties, like Travis or Bexar, surpassed their share in 2020. In fact, all of the state’s largest counties saw a similar decline in their participation rate, between 10 and 12 percentage points.

Solid Republican counties have nearly matched their 2020 early voting totals, which could explain the trend that Republicans appear to vote early more than Democrats based on their voting history.

It’s something of a reversal from 2020, when former President Donald Trump cast doubt on the process and encouraged his voters to go to the polls only on Election Day. According to Ryan’s tracking, 2.5 million voters who cast ballots during the two weeks of early voting had previously voted in a Republican primary. That compares to the 1.6 million voters who participated in a Democratic primary. Texas does not track voter registration by party. Using political party primary voting history offers leverage during a general election.

“The electorate so far this cycle looks a lot like it did in 2020,” Ryan said.