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24 Million Early Voting Ballots Cast, More Than 2014 Totals

By KC Morgan
Published on: 13:58 PST, Oct 31, 2018

Across all states, more than 24 million votes have already been cast early for the upcoming midterm elections. As of Wednesday evening, 43 percent of the voters are Republican and 41 percent are Democrat, according to NBC News.

On this exact day four years ago, meaning 6 days before midterms in 2014, just under 13 million votes had been cast. That’s an increase of 11 million votes, and that’s dramatic.

By the time election day arrived in 2014, a total of 21 million early votes had been cast. This year’s early voting has already surpassed that number, and there are still several voting days left on the calendar.

Along with the District of Columbia, 37 states allow early voting in some form or another.

Analysts are combing through the data, and already some trends are emerging, according to CNN.

Younger voters are showing up for early voting, The Hill reports. Many voters aged 18 to 29 are casting early ballots, and people in this demographic are casting more votes than they have in previous midterms.

In states where races are especially close, younger voters are coming out in droves. Almost 5 times the number of younger voters have cast ballots in Texas and Nevada, compared to the previous midterm election. In Georgia, four times the number of younger voters have gone to the polls, and three times as many young voters in Arizona have arrived to cast votes.

So far, more women have voted than men. Since women tend to show up to vote more than men do, however, this is no big surprise, reports Vox. People who vote early generally aren’t first-time voters.

“Early voting is not a sign of the mobilization of people who have been absent before, says Kathleen Dolan, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. “Much of the data suggests to us that people who vote early are people who would’ve voted anyway.”

Women are more likely to vote than men, a trend that has been constant in every presidential election since 1980 and every midterm since 1986.

Generally speaking, women tend to vote Democratic — but don’t start celebrating the “big blue wave” just yet. There are still plenty of female Republicans, and in 2016, 53 percent of white female voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump.

And even with a lot of other voters out there, white women represent a huge bloc of voters that could potentially sway the outcomes of many midterm elections when the polls open nationwide on November 6.

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