More Than 5 Million Have Voted So Far Across the US: Here’s the Breakdown

A voters fills out their ballot at the Minneapolis Elections & Voter Services building in Minneapolis on Sept. 20, 2024. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

More than 5 million Americans have cast early ballots as of Tuesday, with just three weeks to go before the 2024 presidential election.

A tracking tool run by the University of Florida’s Election Lab shows that 5.3 million have voted in states that are reporting early election data.

The vast majority—4.4 million—have returned mail-in ballots, and more than 941,000 have voted in-person, according to the tracker, which says 34 states allow early voting.

Breakdown by Party, Age, Race

So far, of nearly 2.4 million voters in states that report party affiliation, around 1.3 million are Democrats, about 741,000 are Republican, and approximately 446,000 are unaffiliated or belong to a third party.

In the states that report gender, nearly 55 percent who have cast ballots early are women, while 44 percent are men. Another 1 percent are classified as “unknown,” the election tracker says.

The majority who have cast early ballots are over the age of 65, at about 59 percent, while around 28 percent are aged 41 to 65, according to the tracking tool. Nine percent are aged 26 to 40, and only 3.4 percent are aged 18 to 25.

The vast majority, or 72 percent, who have voted early are non-Hispanic white. About 11.6 percent are black, 1.9 percent are Hispanic, 2 percent are Asian, and 11.7 percent are other, multiple, or unknown.

Early Voting Starts in Battleground State

Starting Tuesday morning, voters in the swing state of Georgia could officially go to early polling locations. The early voting period will last until Nov. 1, the Friday before Election Day on Nov. 5.

A Georgia judge this week has ruled that county election officials must certify election results by the deadline set in law and cannot exclude any group of votes from certification even if they suspect error or fraud.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote that “no election superintendent (or member of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance.”

While they have the right to inspect the conduct of an election and to review related documents, he wrote, “any delay in receiving such information is not a basis for refusing to certify the election results or abstaining from doing so.”

In 2020, Georgia’s presidential election was certified for then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden over then-President Donald Trump by 11,779 votes.

For November’s election, prominent election forecaster the Cook Political Report moved Georgia to “toss up” from “lean Republican” in August, weeks after Vice President Kamala Harris entered the presidential race against Trump.

Utah, a Republican-leaning state, also started its early voting period on Tuesday.

What Polls Say

Multiple recent polls show Trump gaining support. He initially lost ground when Harris declared her candidacy after Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race over the summer.

A CBS/YouGov poll taken from Oct. 8 to Oct. 11 shows Harris with a three-point lead over Trump among likely voters, or 51 percent to 48 percent, with Harris’s lead slipping by about 1 percentage point. The poll has a 2.3 percent margin of error.

A survey from ABC News/Ipsos shows Harris ahead of Trump 50 percent to 48 percent among likely voters and 49 percent to 47 percent among registered voters. The poll, conducted between Oct. 4 and Oct. 8, has a 2 percentage point margin of error.

In mid-September, ABC/Ipsos found that Harris was ahead by 5 percentage points among likely voters and 4 percentage points ahead among registered voters. ABC noted that in its October poll, Trump is now ahead by 8 percentage points among men who are registered to vote

The results are slightly closer than Harris’s 5-plus points among likely voters and the general public, and 4-plus among registered voters, in the ABC/Ipsos poll in September. The gain for Trump among men is a factor, as is a slip for Harris among independents, who are often swing voters.

An NBC poll of registered voters conducted Oct. 4 to Oct. 8 depicts a tied race at 48 percent each. That marks a 1-point decline for Harris and a 4-point gain for Trump since last month.

When the poll is expanded to include all other candidates in the race, Trump pulls ahead 47 percent to 46 percent.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.