As this post is being written, this year’s election cycle seems to be on a trajectory to be one of the highest turnout elections in American history. Based on the U.S. Elections Project’s early voting statistics, maintained by a professor from the University of Florida, as of writing, over 28.4 million people (compiled from 44 reporting states) have voted in November’s elections. With Florida starting in-person early voting today, there is no doubt that people are turning out in the masses to cast their ballots.
Based on information compiled from the U.S. Elections Project early voting information database, Democrats lead by far in the number of votes cast among 17 reporting states. In these states, 53.8 percent of mail ballots returned were from registered Democratic voters, with just 25.4 percent from registered Republicans (the rest are from voters with no party affiliation or third party affiliation). A similar story is seen in early in-person votes cast: among voters in nine reporting states, 45 percent of such votes were from registered Democrats compared to 33 percent from registered Republicans. Nationally, the number of votes cast so far is equivalent to about 21 percent of all votes cast in 2016 (remember that over 110 million eligible voters chose not to vote four years ago).
That by no means means that Joe Biden (and Democrats) are sure to win the election, though. Data has indicated that conservative voters were much less likely than Democratic voters to vote in advance or by mail (due to mistrust of the mail-in ballot system pushed by the GOP and the non-fear of COVID-19). As such, there is no way to get a full picture of voting until Election Day. Also, due to a large number of mail ballots in many states, we are likely to see Republican support surge just after poll closing on Election Day, before mail and advance ballots are counted. Thus, a huge Democratic turnout in early voting should not make Democrats complacent, as the race is far from over.
Unfortunately for the GOP though, putting all their eggs into the Election Day basket is a very, very risky move. It is entirely possible that bad weather occurs in one or more swing states on Election Day, which may suppress turnout. Issues with COVID-19 may cause polling locations to shut. Since the Democrats already have lots of votes cast, issues on Election Day are going to disproportionately hurt the GOP much more than the Democrats.
Let’s take a look at some early voting data in swing states now.
The swing state of Texas began early voting on October 13 and so far, 4,064,685 people have voted at the time of writing. That is an insane turnout—just a week in and over 23 percent of registered voters in Texas have cast their ballots already. That puts Texas as the state with the highest voter turnout, at least so far. And that figure represents a similar amount of people who voted for Democrat Beto O’Rourke in the 2018 midterms or just under half of the number of people who voted in Texas in the 2016 presidential election (about 8.5 million people voted in the state four years ago).
Turnout in the Lone Star State was especially high in the Democratic counties of Harris (Downtown Houston), Dallas, Travis (Downtown Austin), Tarrant (Fort Worth), Bexar (San Antonio), and El Paso. 40,000 more ballots were cast on the first day of voting in Harris County this year compared to 2016. Analysis has shown that if voting in Harris County continues at such a high rate, 97 percent of all eligible voters in the county will have voted by Election Day.
Texas Republicans are known to pursue aggressive voter suppression tactics, such as not permitting the fear of COVID-19 as an excuse to apply for an absentee ballot, limiting the number of absentee ballot dropboxes per county to one (meaning Loving County, with a population of 169, has the same number of ballot drop boxes as Harris County, with a population of 4.7 million), though there has been lots of back and forth in the courts with regard to the legality of this measure. Texas Democrats have vowed to fight back these measures in the court, but it seems that despite these measures, that hasn’t stopped Texans coming out to vote in the masses.
Remember, Trump is only ahead in Texas polls by an average of 1.4 points. That lead could easily be overcome by Biden if turnout is high in Texas.
Georgia is also a state well-known state in which the Republican administration suppresses turnout by closing polling places and invalidating ballots. Yet, it seems like long wait times, long distances from peoples’ houses to polling places, and other hindrances aren’t stopping Georgians from voting. 1.5 million Georgians, or 21 percent of all registered Georgian voters, have cast their ballots already.
The Georgia Secretary of State reports record turnouts with “every passing hour.” The number of mail ballots cast has increased 653 percent since 2016. The city of Atlanta, the state’s main Democratic stronghold, has seen record turnout. In addition, over 30 percent of the state’s Black population have voted, a good sign for the Democrats.
Georgia Democrats are hoping for two U.S. Senate pickups here, the only state where both its Senate seats are up for election, as well as for a Biden victory here. Polling has moved in the Democrats’ favor recently in the state: Biden is up 1.3 percent on the polling average, with FiveThirtyEight now rating the race in the Democrats’ favor. Democrat Raphael Warnock is favored to win Georgia’s Senate special election. And Democrat Jon Ossoff has really ran up the numbers in his bid to defeat incumbent David Perdue—he still has a 23 percent chance of victory. A high turnout in the Peach State could make a blue Georgia become a reality.
Florida—the Sunshine State—is opening up early in-person voting as this post is written. Long lines are being reported in major cities like Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. This is despite heavy rain in the Democratic stronghold of Miami-Dade County. Again, Democrats take the lead in mail-in ballots returned—over double the number of mail ballots has been returned by registered Democrats than registered Republicans. However, it is notable that the gap between the number of registered Democrats and Republicans in the state has steadily decreased over the years.
How senior-heavy communities like The Villages vote will be crucial in determining this state’s outcome. If Trump loses Florida, he is all but certain to lose the election. In 2000, Florida was at the center of the election debate between Al Gore and George W. Bush, who, after numerous lawsuits, was eventually declared the winner in Florida, thus securing him the victory.
Biden leads by about four percent on the polling average in the state.
In conclusion, early voting data is insufficient to determine who will actually win the election simply due to Democrats being far more likely to vote early. What will ultimately matter is the result on election night—stay tuned for that.
Check out all other posts pertaining to November’s election on our 2020 election coverage page. Follow the blog for more.
One thought on “2020 Shatters Early Voting Records”