Early voting in Texas off to a strong start

A line of early voters in Houston, Texas.

(Image credit: Loren Elliott/Getty Images)

Monday was the first day of early voting in Texas, and lines were already forming well before dawn.

At one Houston polling place, thousands of people waited hours for doors to open, including Cody Pogue, who arrived at 8:30 p.m. Sunday night. Pogue wanted to be one of the first people in the state to vote for Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Beto O'Rourke, telling the Houston Chronicle this is "one of the most important elections of our lifetime."

Voter registration is at a record high of more than 15.7 million voters, with about 400,000 people added to the rolls between the March primary and the last day of voter registration this month, the Chronicle reports. Much of the excitement is due to the Senate race between O'Rourke and Sen. Ted Cruz (R). On Tuesday afternoon, the Texas Secretary of State's office will release Monday's early voting numbers.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.