Early voting: A week after Election Day, primary voters look different than they did four years ago

CNN
—

With one week until Election Day, more than 43 million ballots have been cast in 47 states and the District of Columbia.

This comes from data from CNN, Edison Research and Catalist. a company that provides data, analysis and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit advocacy groups, including insights into who will vote before November.

So far, the number of primary votes across the country has fallen significantly compared to four years ago, when record numbers of voters went to the polls ahead of Election Day amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The pre-election total is more than a quarter of the approximately 158 million votes cast for president in 2020.

In the states where Catalist has comparable data, early voters so far are older, slightly more likely to be white and more likely to be Republican than they were at this point four years ago. These trends also generally apply, where data is available, to the seven states expected to decide the election.

Early voting trends can't predict the outcome of an election, but they can provide clues about who's voting — at least so far.

So far, in 39 states where Catalist has data for both years, voters ages 65 and older make up 46% of all returned ballots, an increase of 10 percentage points from this point in 2020. Voters ages 30 to 39 have cast 9% of early ballots, down from 12% in 2020. About 74% of voters in these states are white, a slight increase from 73% at this time four years ago, while black, Latino and Asian voters are slightly smaller Shares of the electorate in favor of early voting.

Early voting in Georgia and North Carolina

While voter turnout generally declines before elections, Georgia is an outlier. Joe Biden was the first Democrat to take the state since Bill Clinton, winning it by about 11,000 votes four years ago. Compared to the same point in 2020, early voting turnout is about the same — down just 1%, according to Catalist data.

While far fewer voters in Georgia voted by mail, early in-person voting has already exceeded 2020 levels. In total, about 1.3 million Georgians voted by mail in 2020, but this year, because the deadline to request mail-in ballots has already passed, only 341,000 mail-in ballots were requested in the state and only 187,000 were returned, according to the state. By comparison, nearly 2.7 million ballots were cast early in person in 2020, but so far this year there are already more than 2.8 million, with four days of early voting remaining.

In North Carolina, early voting is down 12% compared to this time four years ago. But more voters are casting their ballots in person before the election — about 261,000 more voters voted in person than four years ago, a change from the pandemic, when many voters cast their ballots by mail. About 154,000 mail-in ballots had been cast as of October 28, which would represent just 20% of the mail-in ballots cast at that point in 2020.

Postal voting has become more difficult in both states since 2020.

In Georgia, voters who want to vote by mail must now provide additional identification. The state has also shortened the time within which voters can request and vote by mail and reduced the number of drop boxes available.

In North Carolina, voters require two witness signatures with their mail-in ballots, while the state reduced that to one in 2020. The state will also now no longer accept mail-in ballots received after Election Day, even if they are postmarked before polls close.

With former President Donald Trump leading the Republican Party, many Republicans clearly prefer to vote on Election Day, while Democrats across the country prefer to vote in advance.

CNN's latest national poll found that Vice President Kamala Harris had a large lead among voters who said they had already cast their ballot, although there was a tie overall among likely voters.

But the Trump campaign has made greater efforts this year to encourage Republicans to vote early and by mail, a significant departure from anti-voting communications before the 2020 election.

In the 27 states where Catalist has comparable data, Republicans make up 35% of early voting, up from 28% at the same point in 2020. Democrats, who accounted for 45% of early voting at this point in 2020 , accounts for 39% of the primary votes currently cast.

In North Carolina, Republicans make up 34% of the primary vote, up 4 percentage points from this point in 2020. Democrats in the state make up a smaller share so far, at 33% of the primary vote, down 5 percentage points four years ago.

There is also a clear partisan divide in the way people vote early in North Carolina. While 35% of early in-person voters so far are Republicans and 33% are Democrats, 27% of mail voters have been Republicans and 36% have been Democrats.

In Arizona, another key state, Republicans have 43% of the vote, an increase of nearly 10 percentage points from this point in 2020. Democrats have fallen to 35% of the vote so far, down from 41% four years ago. Around a million early and postal votes were cast there.

The situation is similar in Nevada, where around 656,000 ballots were cast. Republicans there have increased their share by 4 percentage points compared to four years ago to 40% now, while Democrats have reduced their share from 41% at this point in 2020 to 35% now.

And in Pennsylvania, the state that has received the most advertising spending and attention in the presidential campaign, Republicans represent 30% of early voting votes, up from 20% in 2020. Democrats represented 70% of the 2020 primary vote at this point; in 2024 their share will be 59%.

Data by party affiliation is not available in key battlegrounds like Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia, but much can be learned by looking at the makeup of various voter demographics, such as race and gender groups, before the election.

In Michigan, where more than 1.7 million primary votes were cast, white voters in Michigan have so far cast 84% of ballots for which Catalist has data, while black voters have cast 11%. This breakdown closely resembles the situation at this point in 2020.

By gender, women make up 57% of Michigan voters so far, up slightly from 56% at this point in 2020.

The numbers show something different in Georgia, where the share of votes cast among white voters has increased to 64% at this point, compared to 62% in 2020. Black voters have reduced their share of the vote to 29%, compared to 32% to this one time four years ago. Shares among Asian and Latino voters remain the same as in 2020, at 3% each.

In Georgia, 56% of votes have been cast by women so far – the same proportion as at this point four years ago.

And in Wisconsin, where 850,000 early votes were cast, 90% of voters for whom Catalist has data so far are white and 4% are Black, basically the same as at this point in 2020.

The ratios between men and women in the Badger State remain about the same as four years ago, at 44% for men and 55% for women.

CNN's Edward Wu contributed to this report.