Can the Early Voting Data Tell Us Anything About the Midterms?

Photo courtesy of the Atlanta Journal Constitution

Polls receive a lot of attention leading up to an election. This party is up, that one’s down. That one’s back, voters are shifting. Mistrust of polls has grown since the polling misses of the 2016 and 2020 elections, especially as call completion rates have plummeted to below half a percent, according to Nate Cohn of The New York Times. Putting polls aside for a moment, is there other data that can provide some insight into how voters are thinking and acting? Perhaps. Today, let’s look at early voting data and review what some of the data experts are saying around two weeks out from Election Day.

Early Voting Indicates a Record Midterm Turnout

As of the end of the weekend, some 7.6 million Americans have already voted, either by returning a mail-in ballot or by early in person voting. Mail-in ballots account for some 6 million of those votes, with Democrats taking advantage of it far more than Republicans, at around a 51/30 percent split according to analyst John Couvillon. (Not all states that report early voting break things down by party, so there is some extrapolation going on based on where the votes are coming from.)

This data so far suggests that turnout for this midterm will be strong, perhaps even exceptional, though this week will really tell a much clearer picture as important states such as Texas and Florida get going with early in-person voting. But the numbers in key states such as Georgia are already setting records, with early vote totals near 2020 levels. For example, after five days of early voting, here is how things stood in Georgia as of Saturday, compared to prior elections:

In 2022: 728,278

In 2020: 746,100

In 2018: 397,701

These numbers are raising eyebrows because 2020 was a presidential election year while 2022 is a midterm. In short, based on early voting, enthusiasm appears to be just about as high in 2022, at least so far, as it was two years ago when Trump was on the ballot.

The story is a bit muted Florida, where there numbers at this point look like this:

In 2022: ~845,000

In 2020: ~1,900,000

In 2018: ~567,000

In other words, in 2022 early voting is showing less than half the number from two years ago in 2020, but it still remains well above the 2018 levels.

A few things to keep in mind before we draw any conclusions. First, fewer people will vote by mail this election because there’s no longer as much fear about the pandemic. Second, early in-person voting is just getting started in some places (like Florida) but has been going for six days in places like Georgia. We’ll know a lot more about enthusiasm in Florida after a few days of early in-person voting. Finally, laws in certain states changed making it sometimes easier, sometimes more difficult to vote in various ways, and so voters may be adjusting their behavior accordingly.

Still, most experts agree that 2022 likely will set records for a midterm election turnout. 

So, If Turnout Is Up, Is That Good for Democrats?

I want to be careful here. Broadly speaking, in a midterm election the party out of power makes gains in the midterms because opponents of the administration are generally more motivated to vote. We saw this in 2018, where Democrats turned out in force in a slowly building “Blue Wave.” As mail-in ballots were counted in the weeks following the election, GOP incumbents were toppled in dozens of House races. 

It was widely expected that the reverse would happen in 2022, namely that the GOP would turn out in force and Democrats would stay home. But if that were the case, you would probably see early voting numbers similar to 2018, with one party fired up and the other meh. Instead, the high overall numbers suggest that we are witnessing enthusiasm from both sides, which is on balance a good thing for Democrats. Simply put, you can’t win elections that you don’t show up for, and it appears from the early voting data so far that Democrats are at least showing up. 

They are not, however, generally showing up in the numbers we saw in 2020, when the House and Senate were won by narrow Democratic majorities. That said, it doesn’t look like the Republicans are showing up in the same numbers as in that election year either, which stands to reason given Trump is not on the ballot. 

I should also note that Republicans tend to vote in person on Election Day, so Democrats need not only to vote early but do so in high enough numbers to overcome the expected GOP turn out on November 8. Whether that happens of course depends on Democratic enthusiasm leading up to Election Day and GOP enthusiasm on Election Day. We won’t know much for certain about the latter until it actually happens. (One side note: There is a risk and a disadvantage to the GOP habit of showing up on Election Day. Bad weather or long lines could discourage voters, for example. Also, Democrats are better able to target voters who have not yet cast ballots and get them to the polls. The push by some in the GOP to have voters hold on to their ballots until Election Day, apparently in an effort to thwart imaginary dangers of voter fraud, therefore could backfire.)

One last point about a wild card here: Young voters who intend to vote have been telling pollsters that they will do so on Election Day, too. These voters tend to skew strongly Democratic, and if enough of them show up on November 8, they can cancel out some of the GOP strength that day. Again, this isn’t something we can know until the day of the election.

Come On, Don’t the Numbers Tell Us Anything?

It’s premature to make predictions, and the early voting data isn’t collected or parsed the same way in each state, but there are a few interesting observations we can make at this time in certain key states.

Georgia. Early voting numbers in the state have defied voter suppression efforts by the GOP, leading Republicans to demand apologies from Democrats who had accused them of passing voter laws targeting minority voters. But we don’t know how many more people might have been able to vote had these measures, such as heightened ID requirements, not been put in place. We also don’t know if the broadly reported efforts may have actually motivated people to show up early. As Stacey Abrams, who is running for governor in the state, put it,

“Yesterday was amazing. It does not mean that voter suppression doesn’t exist. That’s like saying that there are no more sharks in the water because more people get in. We know that voter suppression is alive and well in Georgia. But we’re stronger. We’re faster. And we’re better than it.”

We do know a few interesting things based on reported data from the Georgia Secretary of State, beyond that the early vote numbers are crushing it. First, Black voters so far are turning up in numbers that are slightly above their share of the electorate (around 32 percent of the vote so far, versus their share of around 29 percent of the electorate). This is a critical metric given Black voters power the bulk of the Democratic votes in the state. But we also can see that women in Georgia are outpacing men in the state in early voting by nearly nine points, at roughly a 54/45 spread. That difference, which is significant, could be a result of women wanting to get out and vote early in light of the Dobbs decision and new restrictions on abortions in the state. But it also could be a natural function of more women generally voting for Democrats and more Democrats voting early. 

Nevada. Until late yesterday, there was significant concern that Democrats were quite unenthusiastic about early voting, with totals trickling in and showing general apathy. Nevada, where Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto faces a tough challenge from Republican Adam Laxalt, has been atop the worry list for Democrats for weeks now, with polls showing Laxalt with an advantage and the working class Latino vote feeling disgruntled and disillusioned by inflation.

Then, on Sunday night, Democrats got a significant boost when Clark County, the home of Las Vegas, reported a large batch of mail-in ballots. That data juiced the numbers upward significantly for Democrats, with totals for all ballots, mail-in and in-person, as follows:

Dem 27,084 (44.8%)

Rep 19,145 (31.6%)

Other 14,280 (23.6%)

These numbers for Democrats so far are slightly above the final percentages in 2020, where Democrats had 43.1% of the vote at the end of early voting. It is of course too soon to tell whether these numbers will hold, but it certainly gives a boost to the idea that Nevada will be a close race and potentially winnable state for Democrats.

Other states. In Texas, as early voting gets underway today, there has been a strong uptick in voter registrations that has lead to 1.9 million more voters than were registered in 2018. That likely will translate into a record turnout for a midterm in the state.

In Michigan, which updated its laws to allow no-excuse absentee voting, there has been a surge reported in the number of absentee ballots requested, rising from 912,000 in 2018 to 1.7 million in 2022 during the same time period. According to Joselyn Benson, the Michigan Secretary of State, 640,000 people have already returned those ballots. 

Finally, in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Arizona, there’s an interesting tidbit pointed out by election expert Michael McDonald. In those states, the return rate on absentee ballots favors Democrats over Republicans. This rate refers to the number of people who have actually mailed back their ballots relative to those who requested them. It’s an interesting number because it tells you a tiny bit about voter enthusiasm, irrespective of how people intend to vote. Otherwise put, among those who intend to vote by mail in these states, Democrats have a slight edge in enthusiasm to get their ballots in. Again, this appears to suggest, along with the high numbers of early votes, that there at least no big enthusiasm gap in these critical swing states among the voters submitting their ballots by mail.

All of these numbers will change dramatically and shift upward in the next week as the election draws nearer, so take everything here with large handfuls of salt. The news cannot be said to be unqualifiedly fantastic for Democrats for all the reasons and caveats I’ve outlined above, but it can be said to be foundational in that, without this strong showing so far, the party was pretty much doomed to suffer losses due to the strong tides of history. At least now we can conclude with some confidence that Democratic voters are indeed showing up in key states, and that the party has a fighting chance to hold one or both of the chambers of Congress.