NJ turnout over 15% as early voting explodes

New Jerseyans take to early voting just like Chris Christie to one expensive hotel room with 381,147 personal early votes cast on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

With 637,478 mail-in ballots returned so far, 1,018,625 voters — 15% of the total electorate and about 17% of active registered voters — have already voted in the 2024 general election, according to an analysis by Ryan Dubicki, an Associated Press election researcher.

In the highly competitive 7th District congressional race between Republican incumbent Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield) and Democrat Sue Altman, 116,898 votes have already been cast, a turnout of over 18% a week before Election Day.

In NJ-7, Republicans lead Democrats in early voting by 7,385 votes, 46%-30%, but Democrats have a 19,274-vote advantage in mail-in ballots returned, 53%-26%. In total early voting, 11,889 more Democrats than Republicans (44%-34%) voted.

County clerks in the 7th have mailed 56,536 VBMs to Democrats, 27,536 to Republicans and 30,971 to unaffiliated voters. Democrats have 19,210 outstanding mail-in ballots, while 10,484 Republicans and 16,627 unaffiliated have yet to return their ballots or have them marked as received by election officials.

Statewide, Republicans outnumber Democrats in early voting, 144,644 (37.9%) to 139,999 (36.7%). But on mail-in ballots, Democrats are ahead by a nearly 3-1 margin, 383,062 (60%) to 130,362 (20%).

Nearly six in ten mail ballots (57.7%) statewide have already been marked as received; Democrats have a 64% return, while 61% of Republicans and 42.5% of have returned them.