While Democrats still hold an advantage in voting by mail, as of Tuesday morning, Republicans have taken the lead in early in-person voting.
People prepare to early-vote in Brown Deer, WS., on Oct. 22, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times
More than 17 million Americans have cast mail-in ballots or voted early in-person so far, including more than 5 million in the seven battleground states, per data from the University of Florida’s Election Lab.
In states where voters register by party, about 38.8 percent of early voters are Republican compared to 34.4 percent who are Democrats. The rest, 26.7 percent, are unaffiliated.
The data also shows that Democrats make up 48.5 percent of returned mail-in ballots, compared with about 31.3 percent of Republicans for the 2024 election.
That’s a notable change from the 2020 election. At the same point before that election, 52.5 percent of returned mail-in ballots were from Democrats, compared to 25.2 percent from Republicans, according to Professor Michael McDonald, who leads the Election Lab.
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But McDonald wrote on his Substack page on Monday that any conclusions made about early voting should be taken with a grain of salt.
“We need to wait till the weekend before the election before drawing any solid conclusions about what early voting may tell us,” he warned. “They may yet be unexpected ups and downs.”
McDonald noted that early voting will pick up the pace as more states open their polls and mail-in ballots are returned.
Early voting is already underway across several swing states.
The race is neck-and-neck in Nevada, with 38.4 percent of early in-person and mail-in ballots going for Democrats and 36.9 percent going for Republicans.
For North Carolina, 35 percent of early or mail-in ballots have gone for Democrats, 33.6 percent are Republican.
Data from Pennsylvania shows that Democrats have a 63 percent advantage over Republicans’ 27.6 percent for early voting. All early voting in Pennsylvania is done via mail-in ballot.
—Samantha Flom and Jack Phillips
BLACK VOTERS COULD DECIDE GEORGIA ELECTION
Polling and voter sentiment in the final days of the presidential campaign season are raising red flags for Vice President Kamala Harris’s chances of winning battleground Georgia.
Recent polls show former President Donald Trump holding a slight lead over the Democrat nominee in the Peach State, and his recent inroads with black voters could be the reason why.
An Atlas Intel poll found that Trump is favored by roughly 25 percent of Georgia’s black voters—a substantial gain from the 11 percent he reportedly received in 2020. And a similar Georgia poll conducted by ActiVote had Trump winning 24 percent of the state’s black vote.
But polls don’t always provide the fullest picture of a candidate’s support.
In the Atlanta area on Oct. 19, several black residents told The Epoch Times that they and many others they know are supporting Trump. But many hesitated to immediately share their support, citing the risk of “retaliation” by others in their community.
Others outside of Harris’s Democrat base expressed a lack of enthusiasm about voting for her, with one citing a feeling of “obligation” to vote for the Democrat.
But at a nearby Harris campaign rally, several attendees expressed excitement about Harris’s candidacy.
“I feel that she is more than qualified, and I feel that she’s the right candidate,” Debbie, an older black woman and lawyer, told The Epoch Times.
Robert Edmond, 37, a clinical researcher, likewise said that he thought Harris would be “a good president for incorporating inclusivity, and I think she’s gonna help stabilize our country.”
Still others voiced their dissatisfaction with both candidates and a feeling of having to choose between “the lesser of two evils.”
Democrats have picked up on the lack of enthusiasm for Harris. At a recent campaign event, former President Barack Obama lamented that she wasn’t receiving as much support from “the brothers,” or black men, as he did when he sought the White House.
But with less than two weeks to go until the election, the big question for the Harris campaign is whether that realization has come too late.
—Samantha Flom, Stacy Robinson, and Joseph Lord.
BOOKMARKS
U.S. citizens who live abroad and meet certain requirements can vote absentee in Michigan and North Carolina—even if they’ve never lived there, two judges ruled on Tuesday. The rulings came in separate lawsuits the Republican National Committee filed in those states.
Initial enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign appears to be fading in the last weeks of the election as former President Donald Trump edges up in the polls. Strategists say her messaging has not helped her bid.
Trump is slated to record an interview with podcasting giant Joe Rogan this Friday. The move will put the former president before Rogan’s mammoth audience of more than 14 million Spotify followers and 17.5 million YouTube subscribers heading into the final days of the presidential election.
The FBI is investigating the reported leak of top-secret intelligence documents concerning Israel’s planned attack on Iran, the agency confirmed on Tuesday. The documents were recently posted on a Telegram channel and other social media platforms.
A lawsuit filed against the Wisconsin Election Commission seeks to shut down use of the state’s online voter registration and absentee ballot request system, citing election integrity concerns. The complaint, filed on Tuesday, alleges that the system’s security flaws could facilitate voter fraud.
Former Fulton County, Georgia special prosecutor Nathan Wade suggested to House lawmakers that he met several times with White House officials while investigating Trump but could not recall the details of those meetings. The revelation comes amid the House Judiciary Committee’s release of the transcript of its interview with Wade.
