Roughly 9.4 million Americans have already voted in the midterm elections, casting a combination of in-person early votes and mail-in ballots, according to data compiled by the United States Elections Project.
In Maine, just over 150,000 mail ballots have been requested with 65,000 returned, as of October 20.
Other closely-watched states including Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania are among the top in terms of early voting so far.
The initiative, headed up by University of Florida Professor Michael McDonald, shows that, within states releasing the data, 2.6 million people have voted in person while 6.8 million have returned mail-in ballots. Another 41.6 million voters have requested mail-in ballots, according to the website.
The 17 states reporting data and that share party affiliation show that of the roughly 5.1 million Americans in those states who voted early, 50% are Democrats, 30% are Republicans and 20% are not part of either party or registered with another political affiliation.
Among early Maine voters, 55% identified as Democrat and 21.4% identified as Republicans with 23.6% claiming to be independent of a member of a minor party.
Other states to watch
McDonald noted Tuesday that in Florida, Republican in-person early voters outnumbered Democrats, 56,000 to 34,000.
“This is not just a function of which counties offered in-person early voting,” McDonald wrote. “Even in some blue counties like Palm Beach, more Republicans voted in-person early.”
He added that since many Democrats have mail-in ballot requests carried over from the 2020 elections, “it may be that Democrats who might have voted in-person early already voted by mail or plan to vote by mail.”
If the data around more Republicans voting early in person in Florida continues through the end of early voting, McDonald wrote that he would “be extremely confident in predicting DeSantis and Rubio victories.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, both Republicans, are seeking reelection to their current offices this November.
Florida voters have cast nearly 1.3 million early votes, with 42% from those registered as Democrats, 40% from Republicans and 18% from people without a party registration or a minor party registration.
In Georgia, just under 1 million voters have already cast their votes, with 54% of those coming from female voters and 45% from men. The state’s breakdown of race and ethnicity, something not all states disclose, shows 56% of early voters so far are white non-Hispanic and 32% are Black non-Hispanic voters.
Another 1.5% of early voters in Georgia identify as Hispanic and 1.5% as Asian American.
Michigan voters have cast more than 700,000 early votes, either in person or via mail-in ballots, according to the project.
Of those voters, 62% are more than 65, making up the overwhelming majority of early voters so far. People between 41 and 65 account for 30% of early votes cast, with people between 26 and 40 making up nearly 6% of early votes.
Women make up 56% of Michigan’s early voters up to this point with men accounting for 44%.
In Pennsylvania, residents of the Keystone State have cast 635,000 early votes.
An overwhelming 73% of those votes came from Democrats, with Republicans casting 19% so far. The remaining 8% of early voters come from people not registered as Democrat or Republican, or who affiliate with a minor political party.
Photo: An official absentee ballot. | Maine Beacon
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