Data about ballots that have already been cast across the United States reveals great news for Democrats. In the 2020 election cycle, there has been a dramatic surge in early voting, with over 14.4 million votes already cast across the country as of October 14, according to data compiled by the U.S. Elections Project. Among the portion of those ballots that have party affiliation data available, Democrats have a big lead. A total of a little over 6.5 million early votes have party affiliation data available, and Democrats have cast well over half of that total, with 56.9 percent of those early votes from their own party members. Republicans have only cast 23.3 percent of those early votes for which party affiliation data is available.
These numbers, of course, suggest that there’s a sizable blue wave on the way. Republicans will no doubt get a boost in turnout on Election Day itself, which will likely be thanks in part to President Donald Trump’s own tirades against mail-in voting — which he falsely claims is full of opportunities for fraud — but the data is clear: there’s a huge national outpouring of support for Democratic nominees Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Even amidst the Coronavirus pandemic and its associated economic crisis, anti-Trump enthusiasm is high, and early turnout is soaring.
The state where what seems like the most early votes have already been cast is Florida, where over 1.9 million voters have already cast their ballots. Florida makes party affiliation data available for the early votes that have been cast in their state, and on that level, Democrats are in the lead. As of Wednesday afternoon, Democrats have cast a full 50.4 percent of the early votes that have already been cast in Florida, while Republicans have only cast 29.4 percent of the total, with most of the rest taken up by unaffiliated voters. Florida is likely a must-win state for the eventual victorious presidential candidate. As of Wednesday afternoon, FiveThirtyEight gives Biden a 71 percent chance of winning the state, but there’s still time for a shift — about a month ago, the site gave Biden a chance of victory that was about ten percent lower.
Another electorally important state on the map is Pennsylvania, where Democrats have a very large lead in the race to return mail-in ballots. As of Wednesday afternoon, a little over half a million ballots have been cast in the state, and over 75 percent of these ballots have been cast by Democrats. FiveThirtyEight gives Biden an 88 percent chance of winning the state as of Wednesday afternoon.
