CNN
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With one week left until Election Day, more than 43 million votes have been cast in 47 states and the District of Columbia.
This is according to data collected by CNN, Edison Research, and Catalyst. The company provides data, analytics, and other services to Democrats, academics, and nonprofit advocacy groups. This includes insights into who will vote by November.
So far, the number of early election votes across the country has fallen significantly from four years ago, when a record number of voters cast their ballots before Election Day amid the coronavirus pandemic. There is. The total number of votes cast in the primary election represents more than a quarter of the approximately 158 million votes cast in the 2020 presidential election.
In each state for which Catalyst has comparable data, early voters have so far been older, slightly more likely to be white, and slightly more likely to be Republican than they were four years ago. Higher. These trends also generally hold true for the seven states likely to decide the election, where data is available.
While early voting trends can’t predict election outcomes, they can at least give us a clue as to who is voting, for now.
So far, across the 39 states for which Catalyst has data for both years, voters 65 and older account for 46% of the total returned ballots, an increase of 10 percentage points from this point in 2020. are. Voters between the ages of 30 and 39 cast 9% of early votes. About 74% of voters in these states are white, up slightly from 73% at this time four years ago, while Black, Latino, and Asian voters make up a smaller share of early voting voters. small.
Early voting in Georgia and North Carolina
Pre-election turnout is down overall, but Georgia is an outlier. Joe Biden won by about 11,000 votes four years ago, becoming the first Democrat to carry the state since Bill Clinton. Compared to the same period in 2020, early voting turnout was about the same, with only a 1% decrease, according to Catalyst data.
Far fewer voters in Georgia voted by mail, but in-person early voting has already surpassed 2020 levels. In total, about 1.3 million Georgians voted by mail in 2020, but this year, the deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot has already passed, so fewer people in the state applied for a mail-in ballot, according to state data. received only 341,000 votes and only 187,000 were returned. By comparison, nearly 2.7 million early votes were cast in person in 2020, and so far this year, that number is already over 2.8 million, with four days of early voting left.
Early voting in North Carolina is down 12% from this point four years ago. But more voters are casting in-person pre-election votes, a change from the pandemic when many voters cast their ballots by mail, with about 261,000 more voters voting in person than four years ago. Approximately 154,000 mail-in ballots have been cast as of October 28, which is only 20% of all mail-in votes cast so far in 2020.
Voting by mail has become more difficult in both states since 2020.
In Georgia, voters who wish to vote by mail must present additional identification. The state also shortened the period during which voters can request and cast a mail-in ballot and reduced the number of drop boxes available.
In North Carolina, voters need two witnesses to sign their mail-in ballots, but in 2020 the state reduced that to one. The state currently does not accept mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, even if they are postmarked before the polls close.
With former President Donald Trump leading the Republican Party, many Republicans are keen to vote on Election Day, but Democrats across the country have shown a preference for early voting.
CNN’s latest national poll found that Vice President Kamala Harris has a large lead among voters who say they have already cast a ballot, despite a tie among likely voters overall.
But the Trump campaign has put more effort into encouraging Republicans to vote early and by mail this year, a sharp shift from its 2020 message against early voting.
In the 27 states for which Catalyst has comparable data, Republicans accounted for 35% of early votes, up from 28% at the same point in 2020. Democrats, who had 45% of early voting at this point in 2020, hold 39 states. % of pre-election ballots currently cast.
In North Carolina, Republicans accounted for 34% of the pre-election vote, 4 percentage points higher than at this point in 2020. The state’s Democratic Party has so far lost 5 percentage points to 33% of early-election votes. 4 years ago.
There are also clear partisan differences in how early voting is done in North Carolina. So far, 35% of early voters are Republicans and 33% are Democrats, while 27% of mail-in voters are Republicans and 36% are Democrats.
In Arizona, another key state, Republicans held 43% of the vote, up nearly 10 points from this time in 2020. The Democratic Party’s vote share has fallen from 41% four years ago to 35% today. About 1 million early and mail-in ballots have been cast there.
The situation was similar in Nevada, where about 656,000 votes were cast. Republican support has increased four points from four years ago to 40%, while Democratic support has fallen from 41% in 2020 to 35%.
And in Pennsylvania, which received the most ad spending and attention during the presidential election, 30% of Republicans voted early, up from 20% in 2020. Democrats currently have 70% of early voting. 2020; will account for 59% in 2024.
While we don’t have data broken down by party affiliation in key battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia, we can learn a lot by looking at the pre-election composition of different voter groups, including racial and gender groups. .
More than 1.7 million pre-election votes have been cast in Michigan so far, with white voters for whom Catalyst has data voting 84% so far, and black voters polling 11%. There is. This breakdown is very similar to what we have at this point in 2020.
By gender, women make up 57% of Michigan voters so far, up slightly from 56% in 2020.
The numbers tell a slightly different story in Georgia. In Georgia, white voters now account for 64% of the vote, compared to 62% in 2020. The percentage of Black voters voting has decreased to 29% compared to 2020. At this time four years ago, it was 32%. The share of Asian and Latino voters was unchanged from 2020 at 3% each.
So far, 56% of votes in Georgia have been cast by women, the same percentage as at this time four years ago.
And in Wisconsin, where 850,000 early votes were cast, 90% of voters for whom Catalyst has data so far are white and 4% are black, essentially the same as at this point in 2020. .
The ratio of men to women in the Badger State is about the same as it was four years ago, with 44% men and 55% women.
CNN’s Edward Wu contributed to this report.
