What We’ve Learned From Early Voting Numbers Ahead of Tuesday’s Election
More than 82 million people voted early in the 2024 election, with the Republicans coming within 2 percentage points of Democrats for the early-vote total.
The majority, or 44.9 million, have voted early and in person, according to data from the University of Florida's Election Lab. Meanwhile, about 37.8 million have returned mail-in ballots.
In states reporting by party affiliation, registered Democrats are ahead of registered Republicans by about 800,000 votes, a much closer gap than in 2020, primarily because Republican voters have shown a higher likelihood of voting early this year.
"These new in-person early voters in 2024 might have voted by mail, voted in-person early, voted on Election Day, or didn't vote. The last two are again the big unknowns: to what extent are these in-person early voters new voters or Election Day voters?"
One major reason for the surge is that that Trump has generally encouraged his supporters to vote early this year, a reversal from 2020 when he called on Republicans to vote only in person on Election Day. The early vote numbers confirm that millions of Republicans have heeded Trump's call in recent weeks.
While early voting appears to be high in battleground states, the turnout may be lower in a handful of states that won't likely swing during this election, added McDonald, who runs the Election Lab, in his analysis.
Both states went to presidential candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 election over Trump.
In Pennsylvania, another swing state, about 1.7 million mail-in ballots have been returned, showing that Democrats have a 400,000-ballot lead over Republicans. The state has about 9 million registered voters.
Officials in North Carolina said that more than 4.4 million voters have cast ballots at early in-person voting sites, which was ravaged by Hurricane Helene in late September and cut off multiple areas in the western part of the state. The early in-person voting phase ended Saturday.
In 2020, a record 3.63 million people cast ballots in the Tar Heel State.
Trump has four rallies in three states, beginning in Raleigh, North Carolina, and stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh, both areas Harris is also visiting Monday. The Republican nominee and former president ends his campaign the way he ended the first two, with a late night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
