More than 43 million ballots cast so far in midterms early voting surge

Updated 5 hours ago.

Key points

• Figures on Thursday, external show that 44% of early ballots have been cast by Democrats, and 31.2% by Republicans.
• Texas has already surpassed its 2022 numbers by around 1.75 million voters, notes McDonald.
• Overall turnout appears on track to outpace 2020, and even possibly 2018.
• Three states require voters to submit their race when they register – North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
• When voters were picking both the next president as well as their lawmakers, more than two-thirds of all ballots were cast early, in the 2020 election.

With less than a week to go until the US midterm elections – which will determine which party controls Congress for the next two years – more than 43 million Americans have already voted.

Data from the University of Florida Election Lab indicates that four to five million early votes have been cast each day, a much higher rate than in most previous elections.

Texas has seen the highest above-average turnout rate so far, notes Professor Mike McDonald. This person runs the database. Hispanic communities are additionally seeing a much higher turnout than usual.

Overall turnout appears on track to outpace 2020, and even possibly 2018. It beat the 1914 record for overall turnout in a midterm election.

Texas has already surpassed its 2022 numbers by around 1.75 million voters, notes McDonald. More than 5.8 million ballots have been cast in the Lone Star state. It has emerged as a key battleground that could decide which party controls the Senate for the rest of Donald Trump's presidency.

While Republican early voting numbers remain generally similar to 2022, data from states that require voters to register a political affiliation indicates an growth in votes cast by Democrats.

Early voting is additionally up among voters who chose to not register with a specific party, McDonald states, nevertheless the data does not show which candidates they chose.

Figures on Thursday, external show that 44% of early ballots have been cast by Democrats, and 31.2% by Republicans. A further 24.7% were attributed to voters who had no party affiliation. Nevertheless, that's just for the roughly half of states that require voter affiliation.

Three states require voters to submit their race when they register – North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. While voting among white individuals is on par with 2022 early voting figures, data from these states demonstrates an rise in votes cast by Hispanic and black communities.

"That makes sense because communities of colour are more frequently part of the Democratic coalition, and whites are more frequently part of the Republican coalition, " McDonald notes.

Texas does not require voters to provide party affiliation or race. But the data still demonstrates a surge in voting by some counties on the border with Mexico. It are comprised of more than 90% Hispanic residents.

"When I look at those counties, what I see is some of them are going to beat their 2022 turnout in just the early vote alone, " notes McDonald.

Early voting has boomed over recent years, driven by the Covid pandemic when more states began offering early voting options, including both in-person and by mail.

When voters were picking both the next president as well as their lawmakers, more than two-thirds of all ballots were cast early, in the 2020 election. Half of those early votes were additionally cast by mail.

Voters increasingly prefer to vote in-person, even when voting early, notes McDonald. They are additionally returning their ballots earlier than in previous elections.

He adds that he believes this could be due to reservations concerning postal voting, but notes there is not data to indicate what could be causing this. Postal votes are more probable to be disqualified due to errors, he notes, and states some voters could be concerned regarding meddling in the US Postal Service.

Some authorities have already confirmed records being broken. On Thursday, the city of Minneapolis remarked that it has set an early voting record for a non-presidential election.

As states start cutting off early voting as an option in the days before the election on Tuesday, 3 November, early voting will shortly taper off.

In short, more than 43 million ballots cast so far in midterms early voting is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.