Hope For Democrats As 2022 Is Seeing Huge Early Voting Turnout

Analysis shows that early voting turnout is higher than an average midterm and is on pace for 2018 levels.

ABC News reported:

More than 2 million people have already voted in the 2022 general election, according to data analyzed by the University of Florida’s U.S. Elections Project.

The project, which compiles public data on early voting at ElectProject.org, had counted 2,030,730 early votes, of which 1,842,115 mail-in ballots have been returned, and 188,615 ballots have been cast in person thus far as of Oct. 17. There have been 14,892,186 total mail ballots requested.

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“It’s clear that we are above the 2018 midterm at the same point in time in states where we have comparable data to look at,” McDonald told ABC News.

A 2018-type level of turnout is bad news for Republicans since Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters are more likely to vote early and by mail than Republicans.

Election night 2022 looks like it could be a lot like election nights in 2018 and 2020, as Democrats will build up big leads through mail and early voting and it will be up to Republicans to turn out enough same-day votes to win key races.

Republicans in the Pennsylvania legislature still refuse to allow mail-in votes to be opened and counted before the polls close on election day, so expect a delayed count in a critical governor and U.S. Senate race.

The numbers from the Elect Project show that women outnumber men 53%-45% in early votes cast and Democrats lead Republicans 52.6% to 37.8% which suggests that the damage Trump did to the Republican early voting machine is still lingering in 2022.

It is unknown who these voters are casting their ballots for, but if history is any guide, Democrats should be encouraged by this level of early turnout.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association