Dem
52
Ties
3
GOP
45
Most people get 15 minutes of fame per lifetime. Political science Prof. Michael McDonald, of the University of Florida, gets it every 2 years, as his speciality is tracking early voting. He is reporting 12.0 million in-person early votes and 13.6 million mail-in ballots returned so far. Here is his best guess at the demographics. Note that some states don't register voters by party and/or don't break down voters by all categories. On the left is the breakdown by party, where the data are available. This chart is for AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, ID, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, NE, NV, NJ, NM, NC, OK, OR, PA, RI, SD, UT, WV, and WY. On the right is the breakdown by age. Slightly more women than men have voted so far.
Early voting is up considerably compared to 2022. There were 15 million votes in at this point in 2022. In Kansas, early voting is up 69%, in Maine, it is up 41%, and in Iowa, it is up 24%. Everywhere the pattern is similar. Democrats and independents are engaged, Republicans are not. Of course, Republicans tend to prefer voting on Election Day, so don't draw too many conclusions yet. That said, McDonald believes that Democrats are fired up to vote and Republicans are less so. This is what the polls show and McDonald thinks they are correct on that point.
One thing about early voting is that votes cast before Election Day are locked in and can't be affected by events that happen after they voted. Democrats are pulling ahead in the generic House poll and votes being cast now are going to reflect that, no matter how much money Donald Trump promises voters this week for a Republican sweep. Here is the generic poll this year. The lightly shaded blue and red areas around the dark lines represent the margins of error:
According to Decision Desk, the current generic poll is at D+8. If that holds, the Democrats will pick up 10-20 House seats, maybe more.
Often, as we get close to Election Day, partisans who have been yelling: "I'm not going to vote for [party] because mumble mumble" tend to come home, engage in the ancient "holding of the nose" ritual, and vote anyway. We may be seeing some of that now, especially among Republicans who dislike how Donald Trump has handled the economy and the trade and Iran wars, but hate the Democrats even more because they think the Democrats have lost their minds. Senior Democrats are tempering their expectations of how big a House majority they might win. They see races in the Midwest, a key Colorado seat (CO-08), and elsewhere are getting closer. Some of them don't think they will hit 235 seats, as they did after the 2018 midterms. Both parties think that the deluge of last-minute Republican money might be playing a role here. But, as you know, in politics, a week is a long time, and we have just over a week to go. (V)