United States: early voting tops 53 million, breaking the record two days before the election
Washington, United States — More than 53 million Americans have already voted early in the midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3, a record for this type of election, according to data from the University of Florida's Election Lab updated this Sunday, November 1.
The count recorded 53,277,249 early ballots, above the 45.9 million cast in total before the 2022 elections. The gap versus the same point on the calendar four years ago exceeds 10 million votes, and the total may still grow, because millions of requested mail ballots have not yet been returned. Of the ballots counted on Saturday, 28,133,515 were cast in person and the rest were mail ballots sent back.
In the 27 states that record voters' party affiliation, Democrats account for 43.1% of early ballots, compared with 31.7% for Republicans and 25.2% for unaffiliated or minor-party voters. The lab itself notes that those percentages reflect the affiliation declared when registering to vote, not the candidate chosen: the vote is secret and is not recorded in any public database, and analysts warn that the Democratic edge in early voting does not guarantee an equivalent result, because Republicans tend to turn out in greater numbers on Election Day.
Latino participation also jumped: according to the organization Voto Latino, more than 5.2 million Latino voters had already cast early ballots, an increase of more than 80% over the 2022 midterms. By state, Texas passed 6 million early votes, with in-person turnout nearly 50% higher than at the same point in 2022; North Carolina grew almost 37%, and South Carolina has already surpassed its total 2022 early vote.
Professor Michael McDonald, director of the UF Election Lab, said that, based on this data, total turnout in this election appears headed to match 2018, when the rate was 53%, the highest in a midterm election since 1914. On Tuesday, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 in the Senate will be renewed, and the results will decide control of Congress during the final two years of President Donald Trump's second term. This newspaper reported on Saturday that the figure was around 49 million.
Photo: Archivo A Lo Claro