Early voting: A week from election day, primary voters look different than they did 4 years ago

CNN
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With one week until Election Day, more than 48 million ballots have been cast in 47 states and the District of Columbia.

That’s according to data collected by CNN, Edison Research and Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit advocacy groups, including insight into who is voting before November.

So far, pre-election voting across the country is down significantly from this time four years ago, when a record number of voters turned out before Election Day amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The primary total is more than 30% of the roughly 158 million votes cast for president in 2020.

Across the states where Catalist has comparable data, the earliest voters so far are older, slightly more likely to be white and more likely to be Republican than they were at this point four years ago. These trends also hold generally, where data are available, in the seven states likely to decide the election.

Early voting trends can’t predict the outcome of an election, but they can provide clues about who is voting—at least for now.

So far, across 39 states where Catalist has data for both years, voters age 65 and older make up 44% of all returned ballots, up 9 percentage points from this time in 2020. Voters ages 30-39 have cast 9% of early ballots, down from 12% in 2020. About 75% of voters in these states are white, up slightly from 73% at this point four years ago. The share of ballots cast by black voters has not changed, but Latino and Asian voters make up slightly smaller shares of early voters.

Early voting in Georgia and North Carolina

While voter turnout is generally declining, Georgia is an outlier. Joe Biden became the first Democrat since Bill Clinton to carry the state, winning it four years ago by about 11,000 votes. Compared to the same point in 2020, early voting turnout is about the same — down just 1%, according to Catalist’s data.

While far fewer voters have voted by mail in Georgia, in-person early voting has already exceeded 2020 levels. In total, about 1.3 million Georgians voted per mail in 2020, but this year, when the mail-in ballot request deadline had already passed, only 341,000 mail-in ballots have been requested in the state and only 187,000 have been returned, according to state data. By comparison, nearly 2.7 million early in-person votes were cast in 2020, but so far this year, that number is already more than 2.9 million, with four days of early voting still to go.

In North Carolina, early voting is down 10% from that point four years ago. But more voters are casting their ballots in person before the election — about 312,000 more voters voted in person than four years ago, a shift from the pandemic, when many voters cast their ballots by mail. As of October 29, about 166,000 postal ballots have been cast, which would represent only 20% of postal votes cast at this point in 2020.

In both states, it has become more difficult to vote by mail since 2020.

In Georgia, voters wishing to vote by mail must now provide additional identification. The state has also reduced the period for voters to request and vote by mail and has cut the number of drop boxes available.

In North Carolina, voters need two witness signatures with their mail-in ballots, whereas in 2020 the state had reduced that to one. The state also now does not accept postal ballots that arrive after election day, even if they are postmarked before polling stations close.

Since former President Donald Trump has led the Republican Party, many Republicans strongly favor voting on Election Day, while Democrats nationwide have shown a preference for casting their ballots in advance.

CNN’s latest national poll showed Vice President Kamala Harris with a wide lead among voters who said they had already cast their ballots, despite a tied race among likely voters overall.

But the Trump campaign has made a greater effort this year to encourage Republicans to vote early and as of late.

Republicans make up 35% of early votes in the 27 states where Catalist has comparable data, up from 29% at the same time in 2020. Democrats, who made up 45% of early votes at this point in 2020, account for 39% of votes cast before the election.

In North Carolina, Republicans account for 34% of the pre-election vote, up 4 percentage points from this time in 2020. Democrats in the state so far make up less of the share at 33% of the pre-election vote, down 5 percentage points from four years ago.

There is also a clear partisan difference in how people vote early in North Carolina. While 35% of early voters so far are Republicans and 33% are Democrats, 27% of postal voters have been Republicans and 36% have been Democrats.

In Arizona, another key state, Republicans make up 42% of the vote, up 6 percentage points from this time in 2020. Democrats are so far down to 35% of the vote, down from 39% four years ago. More than one million early and postal votes have been cast.

The story is similar in Nevada, where about 697,000 ballots have been cast. Republicans there have increased their share by 3 percentage points to 39% now compared to four years ago, while Democrats have reduced their share from 40% at this point in 2020 to 35% now.

There is also a partisan breakdown by method in Nevada, with 41% of mail-in voters so far being Democrats and 31% being Republicans, while 49% of in-person voters so far are Republicans and 27% being Democrats.

And in Pennsylvania, the state that has seen the most ad spending and attention from the presidential campaigns, Republicans make up 31% of the early vote, up from 21% in 2020. Democrats made up 69% of the pre-election vote at this point in 2020; in 2024 they make up 58%.

Key battlegrounds like Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia don’t have data by party affiliation, but much can be learned by looking at the pre-election makeup of different voter demographics, such as race and gender.

In Michigan, where more than 1.9 million votes have been cast before the election, white voters have so far cast 84% of the ballots for which Catalist has data, while black voters have cast 11%. This division is very similar to what it was at this point in 2020.

By gender, women make up 56% of Michigan voters so far, the same share as at this point in 2020.

The numbers tell a slightly different story in Georgia, where the share of ballots cast among white voters has risen to 64% at this point, compared to 62% in 2020. Black voters have reduced their share of the vote to 29%, compared to 31 % at this time four years ago. Shares among Asian and Latino voters remain the same as they were in 2020, at 3% each.

In Georgia, 56% of the vote so far has been cast by women – a share that is the same as it was at this point four years ago.

And in Wisconsin, where 989,000 early votes have been cast, 90% of voters for whom Catalist has data so far are white and 4% black, roughly the same as at this point in 2020.

Shares among men and women have remained about the same as four years ago in the Badger state, at 44% for men and 55% for women.

CNN’s Edward Wu contributed to this report.

This story has been updated with additional information.