Midterm early vote: who has already voted
Share of registered Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters among ballots already cast in eleven states, compared with the same date before the 2024 and 2022 elections.
In all nine states Trump won in 2024, the gap between registered Democrats and Republicans is more favorable to Democrats than at the same date in 2024, by 5.9 points in Arizona to 22.3 in Kansas. Compared with 2022, it is more favorable in seven of eleven states.
The Democratic − Republican gap among early voters, 2024 and 2026
Won by Trump in 2024
Won by Harris in 2024
In 2024, Trump was on the ballot and the Republican Party urged its voters to vote early. In 2026, he is not on the ballot. The change since 2024 therefore combines weaker Republican turnout and a return to election-day voting, which these figures cannot separate.
The Democratic − Republican gap, state by state
| State | 2024 presidential | 2026 | 2024, same date | Change | 2022, same date | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nebraska | Trump +20.5 | −1.2 | −9.5 | +8.3 | −5.9 | +4.7 | press |
| Kansas | Trump +16.1 | +7.5 | −14.8 | +22.3 | −3.6 | +11.1 | analyst |
| Iowa | Trump +13.2 | +19.0 | +2.5 | +16.5 | +23.6 | −4.6 | state |
| Florida | Trump +13.1 | −0.4 | −11.5 | +11.1 | −4.5 | +4.1 | analyst |
| Arizona | Trump +5.5 | +0.3 | −5.6 | +5.9 | +3.3 | −3.0 | analyst |
| North Carolina | Trump +3.2 | +18.0 | −0.9 | +18.9 | +8.4 | +9.6 | state |
| Nevada | Trump +3.1 | +4.5 | −5.0 | +9.5 | +3.1 | +1.4 | press |
| Georgia | Trump +2.2 | +9.5 | −5.9 | +15.4 | +1.1 | +8.4 | press |
| Pennsylvania | Trump +1.7 | +41.8 | +27.1 | +14.7 | +51.8 | −10.0 | state |
| Maine | Harris +6.9 | +28.3 | +16.5 | +11.8 | +28.6 | −0.3 | state |
| Colorado | Harris +11.0 | +7.9 | +2.5 | +5.4 | +3.5 | +4.4 | state |
Shares by party in 2026, 2022 and 2024
| State | Ballots | Democrats | Republicans | Unaffiliated and other | D − R gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kansas | 204,089 | 46.9% | 39.4% | 13.7% | +7.5 |
| 135,777 | 42.5% | 46.1% | 11.5% | −3.6 | |
| 301,911 | 35.5% | 50.3% | 14.2% | −14.8 | |
| North Carolina | 1,583,177 | 41.6% | 23.6% | 34.8% | +18.0 |
| 1,163,784 | 39.3% | 30.9% | 29.7% | +8.4 | |
| 2,839,874 | 33.2% | 34.1% | 32.7% | −0.9 | |
| Georgia | 1,775,428 | 46.2% | 36.7% | 17.1% | +9.5 |
| 1,652,000 | 43.2% | 42.1% | 14.7% | +1.1 | |
| 2,829,220 | 33.4% | 39.3% | 27.3% | −5.9 | |
| Nebraska | 151,867 | 41.0% | 42.2% | 16.8% | −1.2 |
| 139,078 | 39.8% | 45.7% | 14.4% | −5.9 | |
| 229,294 | 36.8% | 46.3% | 16.9% | −9.5 | |
| Colorado | 842,056 | 32.5% | 24.6% | 42.9% | +7.9 |
| 537,735 | 33.1% | 29.6% | 37.2% | +3.5 | |
| 1,059,861 | 30.7% | 28.2% | 41.1% | +2.5 | |
| Florida | 3,144,382 | 39.5% | 39.9% | 20.6% | −0.4 |
| 3,037,920 | 38.3% | 42.8% | 18.9% | −4.5 | |
| 5,137,894 | 33.6% | 45.1% | 21.3% | −11.5 | |
| Nevada | 375,492 | 39.8% | 35.3% | 25.0% | +4.5 |
| 331,000 | — | — | — | +3.1 | |
| 550,000 | 35.0% | 40.0% | 25.0% | −5.0 | |
| Maine | 197,139 | 49.7% | 21.4% | 28.9% | +28.3 |
| 153,216 | 51.7% | 23.1% | 25.2% | +28.6 | |
| 254,444 | 43.8% | 27.3% | 28.9% | +16.5 | |
| Arizona | 842,774 | 38.7% | 38.4% | 22.9% | +0.3 |
| 783,439 | — | — | — | +3.3 | |
| 689,000 | 36.3% | 41.9% | 21.8% | −5.6 | |
| Iowa | 265,803 | 50.6% | 31.6% | 17.9% | +19.0 |
| 199,358 | 54.9% | 31.3% | 13.8% | +23.6 | |
| 401,760 | 41.7% | 39.2% | 19.1% | +2.5 | |
| Pennsylvania | 833,960 | 66.3% | 24.5% | 9.2% | +41.8 |
| 841,271 | 71.8% | 20.0% | 8.2% | +51.8 | |
| 1,397,135 | 58.3% | 31.2% | 10.5% | +27.1 |
Where the figures come from
- Kansas
- County counts compiled by ike-lab, mail and in-person voting combined.
- North Carolina
- State Board of Elections files, ballot by ballot. In-person voting opened on the same weekday, 19 days before the election, in 2022, 2024 and 2026.
- Georgia
- Georgia does not register voters by party. The split comes from past participation in party primaries, as estimated by The New York Times; "unaffiliated and other" here means voters who have never voted in a primary. Black voters make up 32% of early voters, against 30% at the same date in 2022.
- Nebraska
- Secretary of State figures, cited from The New York Times tracker. In the Senate race, the Republican incumbent's main opponent is an independent, so party registration says even less than elsewhere about how people will vote.
- Colorado
- Daily Secretary of State reports. Colorado votes almost entirely by mail, and unaffiliated voters outnumber the registered voters of either party.
- Florida
- County counts compiled by DataRepublican. Their method gives exactly our figures in Pennsylvania, where the official data lets us redo the calculation.
- Nevada
- Figures published daily by The Nevada Independent from county data. For 2022, only the gap between the two parties was published. Nevada has mailed a ballot to every voter since 2021, and Republicans mostly voted in person before election day in 2024, so the comparison with 2024 says little.
- Maine
- Secretary of State absentee voter file.
- Arizona
- Figures from analysts, since the state publishes no party breakdown: Stealth Analytics for 2026 (11 days out), Data Orbital for 2022 (12 days out), the Arizona Democratic Party tracker for 2024 (14 days out). Eight days before the 2022 election, the Democratic lead was still 3 points.
- Iowa
- Secretary of State statistics: ballots received by mail or cast at the county office.
- Pennsylvania
- Department of State data. Only mail ballots are counted, since the state has almost no in-person early voting. Republicans started voting by mail in 2024, so part of their gain over 2022 is voters who would otherwise have voted on election day.
North Carolina: who the early voters are
The state publishes the age and party of every voter, and the turnout history of every registered voter.
Age
| 2026 | 2022 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18 to 29 | 8.4% | 5.7% | 11.2% |
| 30 to 44 | 12.8% | 10.8% | 15.9% |
| 45 to 64 | 31.4% | 34.1% | 34.9% |
| 65 and over | 47.4% | 49.3% | 38.0% |
Turnout in the two previous November elections
| 2026 | 2022 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Both | 76.2% | 79.3% | 67.8% |
| One | 17.0% | 14.5% | 19.3% |
| Neither | 6.8% | 6.3% | 12.9% |
Race reported at registration
| 2026 | 2022 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| White | 66.0% | 73.1% | 70.5% |
| Black | 21.9% | 18.6% | 17.5% |
| Hispanic | 3.0% | 1.3% | 2.3% |
| Other | 3.7% | 2.8% | 3.5% |
| Not reported | 5.3% | 4.2% | 6.1% |
Among 2026 voters who voted in neither 2022 nor 2024, 42% are registered Democrats, 15% Republicans and 43% unaffiliated or other.
Share of regular voters who have already voted
| 2022 | 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Democratic regular | 29.2% | 44.8% |
| Republican regular | 25.1% | 25.5% |
| Unaffiliated regular | 25.4% | 33.8% |
| Democratic occasional | 7.5% | 15.1% |
| Republican occasional | 7.4% | 6.3% |
| Unaffiliated occasional | 6.5% | 10.8% |
Regular Republican voters are voting at the same pace as in 2022 (25.5% vs 25.1%). The Republican share is down because regular Democratic voters are voting much earlier (44.8% vs 29.2%), and many of them would have voted anyway, on election day.
What the polls expected
In Elon University's early-October poll, 68% of likely voters planned to vote before election day. In 2022, 58% of the final electorate did, and 79% in 2024. The ballots already cast amount to 42% of total 2022 turnout.
Limits
Party registration is not a vote. Some registered Democrats vote Republican, and unaffiliated voters lean differently from state to state.
When a party pushes its voters to vote early, its share of the early vote rises even if its electorate does not grow. That is why the comparison is made at the same date as in 2024 and 2022, not with the final result.
Voting habits have changed a lot since 2020, and both 2022 and 2024 are imperfect benchmarks. In North Carolina, election-day voting still made up more than 40% of turnout in 2022.
Method and sources
A ballot counts on the day it was returned or cast. For 2022 and 2024, the final files are recounted up to the same number of days before the election as the 2026 data. In Pennsylvania, Florida and Georgia, "unaffiliated and other" groups unaffiliated voters and minor parties, which the files do not always separate.