In what are presumably among the final totals from early voting in the 2022 midterm elections, Dems continued outperforming their share of the vote in both 2020 and 2018. Overall turnout was also higher, by some 3.2 million votes, than turnout in early voting in 2018, suggesting a high level of enthusiasm amid the race for control of the House and Senate.
Overall, 42,240,614 votes were cast across the country by late Monday night, according to data collected by TargetSmart, a political analytics firm. As of the same point of early voting in 2018, 39,089,967 votes were cast. Democrats were estimated, based on internal modeling at TargetSmart, at 50.2 percent of the early vote so far, with Republicans reaching only 39.1 percent. The Democratic share of early voting as of the day before the election has steadily increased from 46.6 percent in 2018 to 48.1 percent in 2020 before surpassing a majority this year. These numbers don’t reflect the contents of votes — just who is casting ballots. The numbers rely on estimates because not all states have voters pre-register with a specific political party. Using data showing just which parties that early voters were actually registered with puts those without any affiliation in the overall majority, although Democrats still led Republicans.
Among the tens of millions of early voters identified by TargetSmart as Democratic voters, a little under half were actually registered with the Democratic Party. A little over half were unaffiliated but were expected to vote generally with the Democrats. Nationally, young voters from 18 to 29 years old remained below their overall turnout in 2018 as of the night before the election, although Dems led — with a margin in the double digits, per modeling — among the voters in that age group who had cast ballots.
The trend is also slightly different in key swing states. In Georgia, turnout in that age range is above its overall level in 2018, as it is in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. According to the TargetSmart estimates, Democrats also maintain their overall lead in early voting totals from individual states, including Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Ohio, where high-profile races for either Senate or governor are on the ballot this year. Delays in tabulating votes, which are built into the process in states including Pennsylvania, where authorities aren’t legally permitted to even process ballots before Election Day, could impact the speed with which results become clear, like happened back in 2020.
Image: Gage Skidmore/ Creative Commons
