Early Voting Numbers: Nearly 48 Million Americans Have Voted — a Midterm Record Before Election Day
The University of Florida Election Lab counted 47,922,669 early ballots by midday Friday, already past the entire 2022 midterm early-vote record of 45.9 million, with Election Day still to come.
The midterm early vote has broken its own record with days to spare. Nearly 48 million Americans had cast ballots early by Friday, according to the report of the University of Florida Election Lab's figures carried by BBC reporting and read in full this cycle: 47,922,669 ballots submitted by midday Friday, exceeding the previous midterm record of 45.9 million early votes recorded before Election Day in 2022.
The surge is concentrated where the Senate map is hottest: states with competitive Senate contests that could determine control of the chamber for the final two years of President Donald Trump's term. In Texas, more than six million people had voted before Election Day by Wednesday, and in-person early turnout ran about 50 percent higher than at the same stage in 2022. North Carolina's election board reported a nearly 37 percent increase over the equivalent period four years ago; South Carolina had passed its entire 2022 early total by Monday, with five days still to run; and Georgia's in-person early vote passed its previous midterm record on Thursday, with women casting 56 percent of ballots there to men's 44 percent. Election Lab director Michael McDonald highlighted increased participation among Black and Hispanic voters in states that report it, pointing to particularly strong turnout in predominantly Hispanic communities along the Texas-Mexico border.
The caveats travel with the record, as this desk has carried them all week: in states that register voters by party, Democrats accounted for about 44 percent of early ballots to Republicans' 31 percent and independents' and minor parties' 25 percent — but party registration does not establish which candidates voters supported, Republicans have tended to turn out more strongly on Election Day itself in recent cycles, and a larger early vote can mean ballots moved earlier rather than more ballots overall. Georgia's top elections official, Brad Raffensperger, attributed the high participation to voters' confidence in the electoral process. What the numbers settle is narrower and still historic: more Americans have voted before Election Day in a midterm than ever before, and Tuesday's voters will decide how much of the story that turns out to be.
