Harris County Republicans’ decision to opt out of running primaries jointly with the opposition party, a choice afforded to them under state law, is purposely creating chaos so the state government will take over local elections, Democratic Party leaders said Monday.
Harris County Democrats said they’ve heard complaints from representatives of both parties, including election judges, clerks, and elected officials, about potential problems anticipated by the split primary election structure enacted this year.
Harris County Republican Party Chair Cindy Siegel told the Houston Press there’s no effort from the party to hand elections over to the state; they simply want a fair, efficient process that voters trust.
“It is not a ploy by the Republicans to take over the elections,” she said. “It was run this way for decades. Given the tension right now between the parties, the candidates and the voters, I think it’s a good thing. It’s allowed under the law.”
Election Day polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 3, and voters can pick their party’s nominee in dozens of federal, statewide and county races. The winners of each primary will face each other in November.
Harris County ran its primary elections jointly in 2024, meaning the Republicans and Democrats shared equipment and poll workers. When the elections are split, voters have to wait in two separate lines on Election Day, so even if there’s nobody at a particular polling place voting Republican, the GOP-programmed machines can’t be used for residents who want to cast ballots in the Democratic primary.
Siegel said the party wanted to split the primaries in 2024 but was told that would be impossible because there wasn’t enough equipment to spread out among the required number of polling places. Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth said more equipment was added since then but also a state law passed in 2025 that allows some precincts to be combined and the number of voting sites to be reduced from more than 1,000 to 280.
Harris County Democratic Party Executive Director Baird Campbell issued a press release last week noting that, under “changes enacted by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature, the Harris County Republican Party was given unilateral authority to refuse participation in a joint primary, splitting the primaries across the county into a massive disconnection.”
“Local election workers from both parties have reported that a split primary creates avoidable complications with staffing, polling locations, equipment allocation, and voter flow — problems that do not exist under the properly administered joint primary that already worked in Harris County,” he said.
A split primary can cost millions in additional taxpayer dollars that could be spent on “critical needs such as public safety and flood mitigation,” Harris County Democratic Party Chair Mike Doyle said.
Doyle and Harris County Commissioners Rodney Ellis and Adrian Garcia spoke at a press conference on Monday, opposing the split primaries and sounding the alarm on what they expect it means for future elections.
“Harris County voters not only need to be warned about wholly avoidable delays and disruptions caused by the split primary on Election Day, but also that the disruptions and delays are part of an already planned path by Texas Republicans to steal control of Harris County elections from local elected officials, deciding where, when, and potentially whether Harris County voters will have an opportunity to freely have their vote [counted],” Doyle said.
Hudspeth acknowledged that previous primaries have been split but the number of registered voters has grown since then, and as evidenced by record-breaking early voting numbers, turnout is increasing. The joint primary “went well” in 2024, Hudspeth said, noting that the Secretary of State applauded Harris County for its efforts.
The political parties contract with the clerk’s office to run primary elections so Hudspeth doesn’t get to make the decision of whether to run them in a split or joint fashion, she said.
“As we were going into 2026, the Democratic Party said, it went well in 2024 and it put less of a demand on recruiting election workers, but the Republican Party said it didn’t want a joint, so now it’s going to be a non-joint because they have to agree,” Hudspeth said. “My office did everything on the front end. We said, here are the pros; here are the potential cons. When you go from a joint back to a non-joint, it forces more election workers to be trained and we end up spending more money because it’s like double elections in one day.”
Could There Be A State Takeover?
Republicans have already indicated that they want to take over Harris County elections. Gov. Greg Abbott said last April that “no one in Texas does a worse job of running elections than Harris County.”
That was the governor’s reasoning for delaying for eight months a special election to fill the Congressional District 18 seat after Rep. Sylvester Turner’s death in March 2025. Many speculated at the time that the delayed election was an attempt to prevent adding another Democrat to Congress and reducing the GOP’s already narrow majority.
Longtime Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, also has been critical of Harris County elections, suggesting earlier this year that at least 100 people illegally used post office boxes, rather than permanent residences, as their addresses on voter registration cards. Abbott responded to the senator’s allegations by saying on social media that Harris County “should be stripped of operating elections, and state officials should take over. Potential legal charges should also be considered.”
Political experts scoffed, saying it appeared Bettencourt’s criticism was regarding a clerical error in the voter registration rolls, which is unrelated to the process of running elections.
Bettencourt filed a bill in 2022 that temporarily dismantled the Harris County elections administrator’s office and allows the state to order “administrative oversight” of local elections in counties with a population of over 4 million — which essentially means just Harris County — and did so in 2024. Critics said at the time that Bettencourt’s oversight legislation was an attempt by Republicans to exert more control over elections in a blue county in a traditionally red state.
Hudspeth has supervised more than a dozen “successful” elections since accusations of election rigging and voter fraud — later found to be meritless — were made in 2022, before she was elected clerk.
“I don’t know what the Republican Party’s initiative is here,” Hudspeth said when asked if a state takeover is planned. “I do know that I inherited the elections office in 2023 after there were some major concerns under the elections administrator’s office. Since then, not only did [the state] return operations to me, but it also created a bill that can possibly remove me or the tax assessor-collector, who’s the voter registrar, from office, if there’s an administrative complaint. Since that time, I have run 13 elections under my leadership that have been successful elections.”
“When there are soundbites or things put out by the governor and others that, ‘Hey, we’re going to have to come in and take over,’ it sows distrust in the election process when we are working really hard to show that we are providing fair and efficient elections with integrity,” she added.
Siegel said Monday the GOP’s aversion to a joint election isn’t an indictment of Hudspeth or her ability to properly oversee elections. “In fairness to the county clerk, she took over what was really a hot mess,” Siegel said. “After the 2022 debacle with no paper and equipment being delivered to places that weren’t even polls, there were just tremendous problems. Clerk Hudspeth has worked really hard with both parties to have good elections, fair, securely-run elections within the framework of the law.”
Senate Bill 1933, passed in 2023, gives the Texas Secretary of State — appointed by Abbott — the ability to take over Harris County’s elections under almost unlimited circumstances if deemed necessary. Doyle said that delays and disruptions caused by the split primaries are “likely to be misrepresented to justify a Republican-led takeover of Harris County’s well-functioning local election administration.”
When asked if he thinks the Republicans requested the split primaries on purpose to prompt a state takeover, Doyle responded, “I know they did.”
“Joint primaries work. They protect voter privacy, ensure efficient operations, and save taxpayers money,” Doyle added. “Democrats have consistently supported the model that serves voters best. If Republicans insist on running a separate primary, they should bear the responsibility for its costs and consequences — not Harris County taxpayers and not all our voters.”
Siegel said candidate filing fees cover much of the costs of primary elections. “By reducing the number of polls, that reduces the overall costs, so it should be more comparable,” she said.
Early Voting Numbers
More than 346,000 Harris County residents cast ballots during an 11-day early voting period. The record-breaking numbers are a good thing, leaders representing both parties agree. Political parties shared resources during the early voting period but they’ll be split on Election Day, Hudspeth said, with Republicans and Democrats separated into different rooms in some locations.
Of the early voters, 220,333 cast ballots in the Democratic primary; 125,513 voted Republican, according to Harris Votes. Sixty polling locations were open during early voting; 280 will be available on Election Day.
Hudspeth, who is running unopposed in the Democratic primary, said early voting ran smoothly and she was pleased with the high turnout numbers.
“I felt like this year would have high turnout for both sides of the aisle,” she said. “There are a lot of contested races and a lot of money being spent by those campaigns. I thought it was definitely going to drive voters to participate, and what’s going on in the country will drive voters to participate.”
Political experts have said the big statewide primary turnout among Democrats can be attributed to the high-profile race between U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, and state Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, for a U.S. Senate seat. President Donald Trump’s unpopularity may also be driving Democrats to the polls, said Jeffrey Engle, director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University.
Harris County’s record-breaking numbers are particularly encouraging for Democrats because the county holds the state’s most populous base of Democratic voters and will likely be influential in the statewide races, said Tommy Kubitschek, a spokesperson for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa.
Hinojosa joined fellow Democrats U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, County Commissioner Lesley Briones and District Attorney Sean Teare on Sunday for a last-minute rally before Election Day.
The adversarial relationship between Republicans and Democrats over elections and voting accessibility was a major topic of conversation at the rally. Menefee, the former Harris County attorney, said he recalled a time when Abbott shut down drive-through and 24-hour voting, also making it more difficult for people to vote by mail. “I also remember suing his ass,” Menefee said.
“For so long, I’ve heard Democrats say, Texas isn’t a red state; it’s a non-voting state,” the congressman added. “This election season, it’s time for Texas to see Democrats activated in a way that we’ve never been activated before.”
Although early voting turnout among Texas Democrats outpaced Republicans, GOP voters are still heading to the polls in higher numbers than they did in the 2020 presidential primary elections, according to Secretary of State data.
Siegel said the GOP’s “numbers are good, but we have our work cut out for us, to turn out the vote and reach out to independent voters who haven’t made up their minds to vote for our candidates in November.”
What’s On the Ballot
Those planning to vote on Tuesday may want to take a long lunch break. The high early voting numbers indicate a sentiment that this year’s midterms are crucial for both parties, but most of Harris County’s 2.7 million registered voters haven’t gone to the polls yet.
Hudspeth declined to make predictions about whether there would be delays or “challenges,” but noted that, because two elections are being operated separately by the two parties, she expects results will be tallied well into Wednesday.
More than 100 races and several non-binding propositions, which will be used to guide the 2027 legislative agenda, are on both the Republican and Democratic ballots.
All eyes are on the U.S. Senate race pitting Talarico and Crockett against each other on the Democratic ballot, and incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt on the GOP side.
Abbott is making a bid for an unprecedented fourth term, with 11 candidates on the Republican primary ballot. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has three opponents in the GOP primary and will likely face state Rep. Vikki Goodwin, D-Austin, in November. The attorney general’s race also has been contentious, as Texas Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, and former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski face off in the Democratic primary, and Congressman Chip Roy and Texas Sen. Mayes Middleton are running a tight race for the GOP nomination.
Menefee and U.S. Rep. Al Green are seeking the Democratic nomination for the Congressional District 18 seat, another source of confusion for voters because Menefee was just elected in a January runoff to fill Turner’s unexpired term and Green had to move over from his District 9 seat due to last year’s Republican-led redistricting effort. Hudspeth said 47 percent of Harris County voters are in a new congressional district now.