Voters cast their ballot from their vehicles as others line up and wait outside the American Airlines Center during early voting Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020, in Dallas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
By Will Weissert and Paul J. Weber
Texans have already cast more ballots in the presidential election than they did during all of 2016, an unprecedented surge of early voting in a state that was once the country's most reliably Republican, but may now be drifting toward battleground status.
More than 9 million ballots have been cast as of Friday morning in the nation's second most-populous state, exceeding the 8,969,226 cast in 2016, according to an Associated Press tally of early votes from data provided by Texas officials.
Texas is the first state to hit the milestone. This year's numbers were aided by Democratic activists challenging in court for, and winning, the right to extend early voting by one week amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Texas also offers only limited vote-by-mail options when compared to the rest of the country, meaning casting in-person, early ballots is the primary way to vote for people who don't want to line up and do so on Election Day.
Voters in Texas do not register by party affiliation, meaning no one can be sure until the ballots are counted whether one party or the other will benefit from the surge in turnout.
The latest CNN poll found that President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are in a statistical tie ahead of next year's presidential election.
U.S. District Judge David Ezra stopped short of ordering Texas to dismantle the wrecking-ball sized buoys on the Rio Grande but called them a threat to safety and relationships between the neighboring countries.
Four months after a civil trial jury found Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, a federal judge has ruled still more of the ex-president’s comments about her were libelous. The decision means an upcoming second trial will concern only how much more Trump has to pay Carroll.
