What early voting data signals about this year’s election

With just days left of this election cycle, millions of voters across the country have already cast their ballots by absentee or early in-person voting. Lisa Desjardins breaks down what this early turnout tells us.
Geoff Bennett:
Tens of millions of Americans across the country have already cast their ballots by absentee or early in-person voting.
Amna Nawaz:
So what does this early turnout tell us?
Let’s turn to Lisa Desjardins for a look at the data.
So, Lisa, break it down for us. Where are we when it comes to early voting?
Lisa Desjardins:
We’re in a really extraordinary moment when it comes to early voting. This nation has shifted over the last 20 years to today.
This election, 47 states have early voting. There’s only three, New Hampshire, Alabama, and Mississippi, which do not have early voting. Let’s look at the numbers, what we know right now. More than 55 million Americans have already cast their ballots at this point in the election.
How does that compare to this point in 2020? Well, it is less, but it was a pandemic, and many people were essentially forced for health reasons to vote. So this is actually a history-making, record number of early votes outside of a national health crisis.
Geoff Bennett:
And, Lisa, what can we tell so far based on who has voted? What stands out?
Lisa Desjardins:
There’s a gender gap in these early voting returns. Right now, we see by far more women than men are voting, in fact, by 10 points.
That’s something that the Harris campaign likes. We see in polls, including our poll in October, that Harris really dominates with women. They believe, the more women vote, the higher the proportion is, the better it is for her.
Now, I will note this is the same proportion as we saw in 2020 in that election. Joe Biden, of course, won in part because of the gender gap in this election. Now, these are just early votes. We don’t know if these women are necessarily Democrats or Republicans.
And I will say there is reason to believe that there are more conservative women voting this year. And I will show you why, at least early. In 2020, if you look at the data for rural and urban voters, it was about the same proportion of early votes.
But look this year. Look what we have, a gap, rural voters making up a much larger proportion of the early vote than they did in 2020. And I can testify from being in Georgia, Virginia, this definitely has to do with Trump and his campaign pushing to try and get out their red voters, especially in rural areas.
They are definitely showing up. Now, the question is, are these new voters or are these voters who would have voted anyway, they’re just doing it earlier?
Amna Nawaz:
So, Lisa, you got at this a little bit. The big question is, where are those early votes going to, which candidate? What do we know about turnout by party so far?
Lisa Desjardins:
Which party. Yes, not every state actually tells us the party identification of their early voters, but those that do, the University of Florida Election Lab compiled this, and it is close, right now, 39 percent of the early vote that we know about from Democrats, 36 percent of it from Republicans.
Now, Democrats had an advantage before in early vote. Republicans have clearly cut into that with their new strategy this campaign. This is the national vote. We all know that swing states are the ones that are going to decide this election. So let’s look at the biggest one. Let’s look at Pennsylvania.
We actually have two counties there still early voting. Early voting was supposed to end Tuesday, but because of various problems, Lehigh County got extended one day, Bucks County still voting today.
What I want to tell you about Pennsylvania is that here Democrats had a 3-1 early vote advantage last election. Now that’s cut down just to 2-1. Republicans feel good about that, but some experts, including TargetSmart I talked about earlier, say those are not new voters, these Republicans who are showing up early in Pennsylvania, that they are those who would have shown up anyway.
But we will see on Election Day.
Geoff Bennett:
And, Lisa, a question about Nevada because there are Democrats who are concerned about the early vote in Nevada because Republicans are voting in greater numbers, voting early in greater numbers as compared to 2020.
Lisa Desjardins:
Yes, that’s right.
Nevada, we have some data on their early vote. Right now, it is overall for the state we have got 34 percent of the early vote for Democrats for Republicans 39. And one reason is because here the state’s largest county, Clark County with Las Vegas, it’s about even on early votes.
Republicans are really happy about that. They think that bodes good signs for them in the state. But, as you know, Geoff and Amna, something you have to pay attention to in Nevada is actually those who have no party registration, which is the largest group of voters in this state, many of them automatically registered.
And Democrats believe some of them, many of them might be young voters who just don’t fall into these D versus R categories.
Geoff Bennett:
Lisa Desjardins, thanks so much.
Lisa Desjardins:
You’re welcome.