Largest demographic of voters in Harris County are age 50, older

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas - Harris County is doing record numbers for the first week of early voting. The county clerk reports that voters have cast more than 54,000 in-person ballots during the first four days. While the first-week statistics are promising, the trend for young voters is still lagging.

Harris County voting and registration numbers show that during the last municipal election, young voters did not turn out. Instead, older voters make the biggest impact at the polls.

"At the end of the day, an overwhelming majority of younger voters will not turn out at the mayoral election," said Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University. 

Harris County voting statistics show the largest demographic of voters are aged 50 and older.

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"A truism in American politics is that younger people vote at a much lower rate than older people. That’s especially the case in local elections," said Jones. 

During the 2019 municipal election in Harris County, voters under the age of 30 represented only 7% of the vote but 20% were registered voters.

"You have many younger voters who don’t know a mayoral election is occurring. Even if the ones that do know it’s occurring, may not know if they live in Houston or not," said Jones. 

At the same time, voters over the age of 50 represented 66% of the vote while 43% were registered voters in 2019.

"We’ve seen a lot of older citizens you know, 55 and older and up, coming out here to vote. The average age of Harris County is and the city of Houston is 60," said Tomaro Bell, the president of Super Neighborhood 83- MacGregor. 

So, how do you get younger voters to the polls?

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"Social media is an amazing thing. In this race that we’re in now, what people thought would hurt a candidate, actually helped them because it was on social media," said Bell. 

Professor of political science at Rice University, Mark Jones said votes of the younger generation matter if they want who is in office to appeal to their interests.

"One of the consequences of younger people participating at much lower rates than older people is that the issues that politicians care about in city politics will be those that are of concern and priority of older voters," said Jones. 

Political experts said during major events like the midterm and presidential elections there’s a noticeable difference in voter turnout. They say the age gap between younger and older voters is still there, but it’s not as far apart.