Voters in Pennsylvania from the ages of 18 to 29 are casting ballots in higher number during this year’s early voting than the early voting that took place during the last midterm elections, according to data collected by the political analytics firm TargetSmart.
Per the firm’s numbers, more than 81,000 voters in that age range have already cast their ballots, and most of those who have done so are Democratic voters, according to modeling produced by the organization reflecting early voters’ partisan ties. As of early Saturday, Democrats were estimated at over 80 percent of the early vote in that age group, with Republicans at just 14.8 percent. Voters identified as unaffiliated, who internal modeling at TargetSmart didn’t place into any partisan category, comprised just 4.7 percent of the total among young voters. No-excuse mail-in voting was only instituted in Pennsylvania, allowing any voter to cast a ballot by mail, in 2020, so it seems young voters in Pennsylvania are taking advantage of the opportunity. The number of young voters who already cast their ballots is higher than the number of votes by which Biden won the state in the 2020 election, so precedent proves it’s enough to be critical.
Nationally, young voters from 18 to 29 have cast fewer votes as of this point before Election Day than they did at this stage in the 2018 midterm elections. (Besides the presidential race bringing more Americans’ attention to the ballot, 2020 is especially unfit for a direct comparison since far more Americans used mail-in voting because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which exploded onto the scene well under a year before Election Day.) Young voters are, however, close behind their 2018 early voting rate in states identified by TargetSmart as battlegrounds in races for governor, a list that includes 14 states (including Pennsylvania). In 2018, voters 18 to 29 had cast over 836,000 votes as of this point before the election. The total this year is over 801,000, according to TargetSmart’s Saturday data. Democrats are about four percent above their share of the early vote among these voters seen at this point before Election Day in 2018.
Nationally, the only age group that was recorded as having cast more early votes than they did in 2018 as of this same point was those 65 and older. Although younger voters are often associated with Democrats while older voters are sometimes tied to the GOP, the Democratic share of the early vote among voters 65 and up was actually also higher on Saturday (by around six to seven percent) than the same pre-election point four years ago, according to TargetSmart. All the way at the top of the data, simply covering anybody who’s cast an early ballot anywhere in the country, Democrats are ahead of their share of the 2018 vote seen at this same stage. The party is surpassing that prior share by about four percent.
