Texas Employers Should Care About Voter Turnout, Not Taking Sides

Texas business leaders closely track interest rates, hiring trends, and supply chains. Yet one early indicator of Texas’s economic trajectory often gets overlooked: primary elections. With primary early voting happening this week, Texans aren’t just choosing who appears on the November ballot. They’re also influencing the future direction of the state’s policy and business climate. 

While the stakes in primary elections are high, participation is often low. In 2024, only about 14% of the voting-age population cast a ballot in the Texas primaries. That gap matters for the same reason a narrow customer sample can mislead a business. The outcome may be valid, but it reflects a limited range of perspectives.  

This reality is especially important in Texas, where many local and state races are effectively decided in the primary. When more Texans vote, elected officials receive a clearer sense of the region’s values, priorities, and expectations, especially around key areas like infrastructure, regulation, and education.  

Employers have a vested interest in ensuring primary participation reflects the people powering our diverse economy, including entrepreneurs, engineers, educators, service workers, healthcare professionals, and first responders. Higher participation also supports better business outcomes, including more predictable policy environments and workplace cultures built on a sense of shared responsibility.  

Most people don’t skip the primaries for lack of interest. Often, it’s simply because they don’t realize the primaries are happening. Only five states, including Texas, hold primaries in March, long before most national news outlets start discussing elections.  

Employers can take small actions to positively improve primary participation. Workers often rely on timely information from employers and are more likely to act when it comes from trusted leaders. Supporting voter turnout is not about taking political sides. It’s about strengthening the civic foundation on which healthy markets and communities depend.  

This philosophy is at the heart of March Matters, a statewide initiative that makes it easy for employers to find, use, and share nonpartisan information about the Texas primary elections. More than 350 trusted corporations, associations, and key community organizations are already using these tools with their large networks.  

Posting key voting dates in break rooms, adding election resources to internal emails, and offering scheduling flexibility to vote and work the polls are all practical steps. These measures don’t tell anyone how to vote. They simply make participation easier for those who choose to take part, especially busy parents, shift workers, caregivers, and business travelers who need to fit voting into real life.   

Texas’ strength has long come from engaged residents and a commitment to civic life. This election season, employers can contribute by ensuring the people who power our city’s economy have the education and encouragement they need to participate, especially in primaries where early timing and lower awareness can hurt turnout. 

Texas is stronger when more Texans vote. Employers can help make that happen at minimal cost, with clear benefits to organizational culture and the broader business climate.