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CNN —
Election Day is just two weeks away, and millions of Americans are voting early or by mail-in ballots every day.
Early Tuesday, news reports said more than 15 million Americans had voted. That number had increased to more than 18 million people when CNN reviewed early voting data obtained by election officials and Catalyst and Edison Research around noon Tuesday. We will continue to grow. For reference, over 150 million votes were cast in 2020.
In the critical state of Georgia this year, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said on CBS News Sunday that he expects up to 70% of the state’s votes to be cast by Election Day.
One interesting development in Catalyst’s data is that there are some hints in these early reports that Republicans may be cutting into the Democratic lead in early voting. Early data shows more Republicans than Democrats voting in Nevada, and the two parties are about the same in North Carolina. This may cause concern for Democrats who remember 2020, when Democratic mail-in voting was critical to Joe Biden’s victory. It also could simply mean Republicans are doing more to promote early voting.
In any case, more early voting for Republicans could reduce what could be considered a “blue shift” when Democratic-leaning mail-in ballots are counted after Republican-leaning Election Day votes in key states in 2020. There is.
First, all votes cast before the deadline and votes cast on Election Day are counted equally. This year is also very different from 2020. In the year of the pandemic, far more Americans voted by mail than expected this year. Much of this year’s early voting will be in person.
Additionally, while former President Donald Trump doesn’t technically embrace early voting, Republican strategists who support him do. They encouraged his supporters to vote early.
Trump won the state in both 2016 and 2020 but is defending it this year, holding several campaign events in the state this week.
So far in North Carolina, roughly equal proportions of Republicans, Democrats and independents have voted by mail or early voting.
Republican strategist Doug Hay said on CNN on Tuesday that it doesn’t take into account the percentage of Republicans or Democrats who voted early in the state.
“I’m looking at independent voters in North Carolina, and I wonder what they’re going to do,” he said. “That’s going to decide this election.”
Nearly 1.4 million people have already cast ballots in North Carolina, according to CNN data. Compare this to the approximately 5.5 million total votes cast in 2020.
Hay also argued that in states like North Carolina, where the outcome can be close, it’s the small number of undecided voters who ultimately decide the outcome.
“If you voted early, obviously you’ve already made up your mind,” Hay told CNN’s John Berman. He noted that an event Vice President Kamala Harris held this week with disgruntled former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney could appeal to remaining enigmatic voters.
In other words, it’s not over yet.
More than 1.7 million people voted in Georgia, a growing number of voters in a state that cast just under 5 million votes in the 2020 presidential election. But while Georgia voters don’t register by party, there are other data points to consider.
More women have voted in Georgia so far, accounting for 55% of early votes, compared to 45% of men, according to ballots for which Catalyst has data. Biden won more than half of Georgia’s women in 2020, and women made up more than half of the voters that year, according to CNN exit polls.
Meanwhile, older voters are the largest age group to vote early in Georgia. Trump beat them in 2020, according to exit polls.
Black voters made up about 29% of Georgia voters in 2020, according to exit polls, and they make up 31% of the state’s early voting voters in 2024 so far.
In Nevada, fewer than 1.5 million voters cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election, but just under 250,000 have cast ballots so far in 2024. But available data shows that, unlike in Georgia, more men than women vote.
The opposite is true in Rust Belt states Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where more women are voting early. Less than 400,000 votes have been cast in Wisconsin so far, compared to more than 3 million votes cast in the 2020 presidential election. Nearly 1 million votes were cast in Pennsylvania in early 2024, compared to about 7 million total votes cast in 2020.
In Georgia and Pennsylvania, white voters have made up a slightly larger share of ballots so far, and Black voters have made up a slightly smaller share compared to this point in 2020. The percentage of Latino and Asian voters is unchanged from four years ago. In Wisconsin, 89% of voters are currently white, but the racial breakdown is about the same as it was in 2020.
CNN Senior Political Analyst Ronald Brownstein says that in addition to differences in how people vote this year, key states and national populations have changed over the past four years, comparing 2020 to 2024. It is difficult to do so.
Brownstein spoke with William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, who said a new analysis shows that nationally, white college-educated voters and voters of color are about 1. It claims to have increased by a percentage point. The share of working-class white voters who increasingly form the backbone of the modern Republican Party is declining faster in Wisconsin and Michigan than in Pennsylvania.
Brownstein said these small changes can have a huge impact.
“This seems like a kind of butterfly-effect competition. A small change in the environment could be enough to change the dynamics between these two roughly equal-sized coalitions with diametrically opposed demands on the country. No,” Brownstein said. On CNN.
CNN’s Molly English, Matt Holt and Ethan Cohen contributed to this report.
