Trump Projected Texas Winner In Presidential Race

Donald Trump is the projected election night winner in Texas, according to The Associated Press.

Texas surpassed its 2016 voter turnout with a day of early voting to go, and plenty of voters were in line to vote on Election Day itself. The Lone Star State — once reliably red — was seen as competitive in the 2020 presidential election with Republican President Donald Trump holding a narrow lead over Democratic challenger and former Vice President Joe Biden, the most updated polling averages showed going into Election Day.

When early voting concluded in Texas, the share of votes cast accounted for just over 108 percent of total votes cast in 2016, according to the U.S. Elections Project.

Voters also awaited results in the U.S. Senate race where incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn won re-election over Democrat M.J. Hegar.

Patch will be updating with live results from the presidential race as they come in. Refresh for the latest:

Trump: 5,599,742

Biden: 4,974,180

(Results as provided by The Texas Tribune; about 90.9 percent of votes have been counted.)

SEE ALSO:

• Here's How Votes Are Counted In Texas
• Rural Texans Have Long Helped Republicans. Will That Hold True On Tuesday?
• Polls, Late Campaign Activity Suggest Republican Dominance In Texas Could Be At Risk

Texas and its 38 Electoral College votes are the second biggest prize of the night, just behind California with 55.

Shifting demographics and a surge in the state's population have favored Democrats, as evidenced by the gains Democrats made in the Statehouse in 2018 and former El Paso Congressman Beto O' Rourke's narrow loss to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz the same year. Trump won the state in 2016 by more than 800,000 votes over Hillary Clinton. In 2018, Cruz beat O'Rourke and was re-elected by a margin of just over 200,000 votes. With 2020 already having beat the record turnout in 2016, turnout will be much higher than in the 2018 midterm election.

Seeing Texas in play, the Biden campaign dispatched surrogates to the state in the final days of the campaign. Most notably was his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), who made stops in the Dallas and Houston areas. In the weekend before the election, the Biden campaign canceled at least three events in the state after Trump supporters surrounded a campaign bus on I-35.

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As reported by The Texas Tribune, the Biden campaign's focus was on suburban, Black and Hispanic communities, as Trump's advantage lies in rural areas.

To fuel Democratic efforts in Texas, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg funneled millions through his super PAC to run television ads in Texas through Election Day.

Democrats' efforts in the state extend to taking control of the Statehouse, where they need to pick nine seats to be in the majority.

Results from election night in Texas began coming in fairly soon once polls closed at 7 p.m. Since Texas did not broadly expand mail-in voting during the pandemic but instead instituted five extra days of early voting, the state is not expected to see large delays in counting mail-in ballots like other states that significantly expanded the option. Of the total share of early voting, just under 1 million mail-in ballots have been returned, while a whopping 8.7 million votes were cast early in person, according to the U.S. Elections Project.