Early vote totals sharply up for Republicans, down for Democrats Compared to 2008, twice as many GOP ballots and half as many Dems

Harris County turnout spiked on the last day of early voting Friday, when 32,993 Republicans and 20,362 Democrats cast ballots to close out a week packed with visits from presidential contenders.

The GOP field converged on Houston mid-week for the last debate before Super Tuesday, and Democrat Hillary Clinton touched down for a rally here last Saturday - reflections of Texas' newfound prominence in the presidential nominating process.

Friday's voting brought early participation among Harris County Republicans to 131,145, more than double the number of early and absentee votes collected by the last day of early voting in 2008, the last open-seat presidential election year, according to unofficial county election totals.

Democratic early turnout, on the other hand, dropped by more than half to 85,816 from about 177,000 eight years ago.

Friday was the highest-turnout day for both parties, as is typical for early voting in presidential primaries.

"People are waiting because they're getting information relevant to their vote choice," Rice University political scientist Bob Stein said. "The debate, I think, was really important."

Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart agreed.

"More people have made up their minds," Stanart said. "And also it's the ads that are starting to hit the media."

Ad buys in Houston

Federal Communications Commission files show Clinton, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and billionaire Donald Trump all purchased ad time in Houston this week, as did a political action committee backing Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

Stanart continued to project a total Harris County Republican primary turnout of 265,000 and a Democratic turnout of 160,000. He said he expects 52 percent of the vote to be cast on Tuesday, Election Day.

That would be a slight increase from 2012, when 51 percent of the county vote was cast on Election Day. In 2008, 58 percent of the voters went to the polls on Election Day.

As of Thursday, nearly 394,000 Republicans in the state's 10 biggest counties had cast early or absentee ballots, nearly doubling GOP participation through the second-to-last day of early voting in 2008.

A dip in Dems

Democrats in Texas' large counties, meanwhile, cast 312,000 early votes, less than half of their total early vote in 2008.

Election Day is Tuesday.