Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions)
Our first question is from Bob Drbul. Go ahead please.
Bob Drbul
Hi. Good morning.
James Scarborough - Chairman, CEO, Chief Merchandising Officer
Good morning, Bob.
Andrew Hall - President, COO
Good morning, Bob.
Bob Drbul
The first question I have is you gave the comp in the small markets for the quarter. Can you just give us the comp for the large markets and the mid-sized markets? And then the second question that I have is can you talk about has the tax-free holiday impacting the business at all in August? I thought it was supposed to.
James Scarborough - Chairman, CEO, Chief Merchandising Officer
I'll start with the last part first. I think Texas tax-free is less and less important every year. I think the first year we did it was like six or seven years ago, it was pretty outstanding and every year it's been a little bit of luster and importance for the sales line, Bob. Because it's -- you know it's a sale event if you think of it that way.
Andy has comps by state, certainly by market size. One thing I'd like to throw on is if you think of our comps in the month of July, our Texas comps because of weather were down about 4.5% versus the chain average of about 1.5%. So Texas has been impacted obviously severely by the rains and the flooding. Andy, do you have the market size?
Andrew Hall - President, COO
Yeah, before I get into that, I'll just amplify your comment about the Texas tax rate. Bob, we'll have a better read on the Texas back-to-school at the end of this week. Texas goes back-to-school Monday of next week. So Texas tax free was last weekend. This is going to be another big back-to-school week. So we'll have a better read once we get through this week.
Relating to the market sizes, we mentioned 2.6 positive for the small market, less than 50,000 for the quarter. That's similar to what it is year-to-date, as well. 2.6 year-to-date. The mid-size market's 50,000 to 150,000 population was minus 2.8% for the quarter and yet comparable for the first half of minus 2.7%. And the large market's greater than 150 was minus 1.4% for the quarter and minus 2.2% for the year-to-date.
Bob Drbul
And within the different market sizes, Andy, are you seeing different competitive postures, as you know, when you think about the promotional environment?
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