Q&A of the Day – How Is Early Voting Pacing Compared to 2020?
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Today’s Entry: @brianmuddradio You mentioned the GOP was performing well in GA & AZ in the early vote. How is early voting going overall compared to 2020?
Bottom Line: Early voting is now underway in Florida, and in total we have partisan voter information available in 41 states for those who’ve already voted either by mail or through early in person voting. Twenty states, including Florida, account for partisan voter registration information in voter totals. The other 21 states are modeled by Florida based political research company TargetSmart. For the purpose of this exercise, I’m going to include early voting and vote by mail ballots together for an aggregate picture of who’s voted thus far and how the trends matchup with 2020’s final early vote counts (all votes cast prior to Election Day). The partisan makeup of those who voted prior to Election Day in 2020 were:
- 44.8% Democrats
- 30.5% Republicans
- 24.7% NPA/Minor Party
Republicans held a 14.3% voter deficit to Democrats heading into Election Day 2020 – a total that was reduced to about 4% based on strong Election Day turnout but a number that proved to be too large for Donald Trump and many down ballot Republicans to overcome. Here’s where we stood nationally as of Monday (this was prior to any early in person voting data being made available for Florida):
- 47% Democrats
- 36% Republicans
- 17% NPA/Minor Party
Interestingly we’re seeing larger percentages of partisans on both sides of the isle voting early, while there’s been a significant decrease in early participation by those who lack a party affiliation or that are minor party affiliated. Here are the current changes in partisan vote splits over four years ago:
- Democrats: +2.2%
- Republicans: +5.5%
- NPA/Minor Party: -7.7%
This illustrates that Republicans are performing better, relative to Democrats compared to four years ago by 3.3 - points. A number that is certainly large enough to prove decisive in close swing states. Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by fewer than 3.3% in six states. So, about the swing states... Let’s drill down a bit further and compare how the parties are currently performing in the seven most closely watched swing states compared to four years ago.
Arizona (Direct Reporting):
- 2020 early vote: D+0.5%
- 2024 early vote: R+7%
Georgia (Modeled):
- 2020 early vote: N/A
- 2024 early vote: R+3%
Michigan (Modeled):
- 2020 early vote: N/A
- 2024 early vote: D+18%
Nevada (Direct Reporting):
- 2020 early vote: D+4.1%
- 2024 early vote: D+5%
North Carolina (Direct Reporting):
- 2020 early vote: D+5.6%
- 2024 early vote: D+1%
Pennsylvania (Direct Reporting):
- 2020 early vote: D+41%
- 2024 early vote: D+37%
Wisconsin (Modeled):
- 2020 early vote: N/A
- 2024 early vote: D+21%
What we’re seeing in direct reporting swing states is that Republicans are performing better than four years ago in three out of the four states (Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania) for an average improvement of 3.8% - which is an even bigger improvement than the overall national average. Donald Trump won North Carolina four years ago, so an improvement in early voting in that state may serve to help solidify his position. Importantly in the other two states, Arizona and Pennsylvania, the Republican improvement in the partisan splits is significantly larger than Joe Biden’s margin of victory in each in 2020. If the current trends were to play out in those two states similarly the rest of the way Trump would be well positioned to flip both of those states.
If Trump were to flip Arizona and Pennsylvania, he’d be only 7 Election College votes away from clinching the race if the 2020 map otherwise stayed the same. It’s hard to know what to make of the other swing states in which we don’t have comparative partisan data for early voting in 2020, however, Georgia looks like it’s setting up especially favorably for Republicans. Despite not having comparative in Georgia, with Republicans outperforming Democrats by 3% to date, one might imagine that would setup well for Trump if the current trend held that way leading up towards Election Day.
The caveat to this conversation is that obviously not all Democrats will vote for Harris and not all Republicans will vote for Trump (though we know historically that over 90% almost certainly will). Also, with NPA and minor party affiliated voters accounting for about a quarter of the electorate, the candidate that wins the majority of support from them will likely win the election in close states. But the bottom line is that Republicans are performing over 3% better with the early vote compared to four years ago nationally, and that’s a number that grows to nearly 4% improved within the swing states that we have data for specifically.