Early voting in the midterms exceeds 2018 levels with more than 21 million votes.

CNN
—

Pre-election vote is surpassing 2018 so far across 36 states where data is available, according to Catalist.

Catalist — a company that provides data, analysis and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit advocacy organizations — gives insights into who votes before November and has data from those states for the past three cycles.

“The 2022 turnout is very high for a midterm so far, but it’s still hard to say if we’ll beat the historic turnout we saw in 2018,” Catalist CEO Michael Frias said in a statement to CNN.

In total, more than 21.4 million votes were cast in 46 states, according to data from election officials, Edison Research and Catalist.

Almost 3 million pre-election votes were cast Texas and almost 2.8 million were put in Florida.

Some states with large increases in pre-election voting so far have had changes in election rules. As of 2018, Virginia, Vermont and Michigan have expanded access to voting by mail.

In Georgia and Texas, the pre-election vote is higher compared to 2018, but not to the same extent. In the battleground states of North Carolina, Ohio and Florida, pre-election voting is so far on par with 2018 levels.

Some of the increase in pre-election voting compared to 2018 could be attributed to changes in voting trends.

“Voting by mail and early voting have become much more popular than they were in 2018, but we’ve also seen a lot of people returning to Election Day voting since 2020,” Frias said.

In Arizona, Florida, Nevada and North Carolina, Republicans made up a larger share of those who returned pre-election votes than in those states in 2020.

The biggest jump occurred in Florida where Republicans took 42% of the pre-election vote, up from 36% in 2020.

For the Sunshine State, this is a return to an electoral trend 2018. At this point in the cycle four years ago, Republicans made up 43% of those who had made a pre-election vote to 40% of Democrats.

In Arizona and North Carolina, the increases from 2020 are more subtle, but still show a distinct change.

Arizona Republicans have taken 37% of the vote so far, up from 34% at this point in 2020, and North Carolina Republicans have taken 31%, up from 29% two years ago.

Republicans in Nevada make up 35% of those who cast a pre-election vote, down less than a percentage point from this point in 2020.

While Republicans in Arizona and Nevada may outnumber pre-election voters now than they did in 2020, they are far behind the share of the vote they did at this point in the cycle in 2018, an election that he had before. many national GOP figures such as former President Donald Trump have discouraged early voting during the 2020 election.

Four years ago, Arizona Republicans made up 44% of those who had cast a pre-election vote, and Nevada Republicans had a 40% share.

In Pennsylvania, it is the Democrats who have slightly increased their share of the pre-election vote since 2020. Keystone State Democrats make up 72% of the votes cast so far, while at this point in 2020, they make up the 70%.

Republicans in Pennsylvania remained steadfast. They make up 20% of the pre-election vote currently, the same percentage at this point in the cycle in 2020.

“Enthusiasm for the vote is very high, both among Democrats and Republicans,” Frias said.

“In the past, we expected to see a big advantage in Republican enthusiasm in a midterm when we have a Democratic president, but after the Republican-appointed judges overturned Roe v. Wade, we also saw increased enthusiasm from voters democratic”. he added.