One week from Election Day, early voters look different than they did 4 years ago

By Matt Holt, Ethan Cohen and Molly English, CNN

(CNN) — With one week until Election Day, more than 48 million ballots have been cast across 47 states and the District of Columbia.

That’s according to data gathered by CNN, Edison Research and Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit advocacy groups, including insights into who is voting before November.

So far, preelection voting across the country is down significantly from this point four years ago, when a record number of voters turned out before Election Day amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The preelection total is more than 30% of the roughly 158 million votes cast for president in 2020.

Across the states where Catalist has comparable data, early voters so far are older, slightly more likely to be White and more likely to be Republican than they were at this point four years ago. These trends also generally hold, where data is available, in the seven states that are likely to decide the election.

Early voting trends cannot predict the outcome of an election, but they can provide clues about who is voting – at least so far.

So far, across 39 states where Catalist has data for both years, voters ages 65 and older make up 44% of all returned ballots, up 9 percentage points from this point in 2020. Voters ages 30-39 have cast 9% of early ballots, down from 12% in 2020. About 75% of voters in those states are White, up slightly from 73% at this point four years ago. The share of ballots cast by Black voters hasn’t changed but Latino and Asian voters make up slightly smaller shares of the early voting electorate.

Early voting in Georgia and North Carolina

While preelection turnout is generally down, Georgia is an outlier. Joe Biden became the first Democrat since Bill Clinton to carry the state, winning it four years ago by roughly 11,000 votes. Compared with the same point in 2020, early voting turnout is roughly the same – down just 1%, according to Catalist’s data.

While far fewer voters have voted by mail in Georgia, in-person early voting has already surpassed 2020 levels. In total, about 1.3 million Georgians voted by mail in 2020, but this year, with the mail ballot request deadline having already passed, only 341,000 mail ballots have been requested in the state and only 187,000 have been returned, according to state data. By comparison, nearly 2.7 million ballots were cast early in person in 2020, but so far this year that number is already more than 2.9 million, with four more days of early voting to go.

In North Carolina, early voting is down 10% from this point four years ago. But more voters are casting their preelection ballots in person – roughly 312,000 more voters voted in person than four years ago, a shift from the pandemic, when many voters cast their ballots by mail. As of October 29, roughly 166,000 mail ballots have been cast, which would account for just 20% of the mail ballots cast at this point in 2020.

In both states, it’s become harder to vote by mail since 2020.

In Georgia, voters who wish to vote by mail must now provide additional identification. The state has also reduced the period for voters to request and vote by mail-in ballot and has cut down on the number of drop boxes available.

In North Carolina, voters need two witness signatures with their mail ballots, whereas in 2020, the state had reduced that to one. The state also now doesn’t accept mail ballots that arrive after Election Day, even if they are postmarked before the polls close.

Party differences

Since former President Donald Trump has led the Republican Party, many Republicans strongly prefer to vote on Election Day, while Democrats nationwide have shown a preference to cast their ballots in advance.

CNN’s most recent national poll found that Vice President Kamala Harris had a large lead among voters who said they had already cast their ballots, despite a tied race among likely voters overall.

But the Trump campaign has made more of an effort this year to encourage Republicans to vote early and by mail, a major shift from messaging against preelection voting in 2020.

Republicans make up 35% of the early vote in the 27 states where Catalist has comparable data, up from 29% at the same point in 2020. Democrats, who made up 45% of the early vote at this point in 2020, account for 39% of preelection ballots cast now.

In North Carolina, Republicans account for 34% of the preelection vote, 4 percentage points higher than at this point in 2020. Democrats in the state make up less of the share so far with 33% of the preelection vote, 5 percentage points down from four years ago.

There’s also a clear partisan difference in how people are voting early in North Carolina. While 35% of early in-person voters so far are Republicans and 33% are Democrats, 27% of mail voters have been Republicans and 36% have been Democrats.

In Arizona, another key state, Republicans make up 42% of the vote, up 6 percentage points from this time in 2020. Democrats are down to 35% of the vote so far, from 39% four years ago. More than a million early and mail votes have been cast there.

The story is similar in Nevada, where around 697,000 ballots have been cast. Republicans there have upped their share by 3 percentage points to 39% now compared with four years ago, while Democrats have decreased their share from 40% at this point in 2020 to 35% now.

There’s also a partisan split by method in Nevada, where 41% of mail voters so far are Democrats and 31% are Republicans, whereas 49% of in-person voters so far are Republicans and 27% are Democrats.

And in Pennsylvania, the state that has seen the most ad spending and attention from the presidential campaigns, Republicans make up 31% of the early vote, up from 21% in 2020. Democrats made up 69% of the preelection vote at this point in 2020; in 2024, they account for 58%.

Demographic trends

Key battlegrounds like Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia don’t have data by party affiliation, but a lot can be learned by looking at the preelection makeup among different voter demographics, like race and gender groups.

In Michigan, where more than 1.9 million preelection votes have been cast, White voters have so far cast 84% of the ballots for which Catalist has data, while Black voters have cast 11%. This breakdown is very similar to what it was at this point in 2020.

By gender, women make up 56% of Michigan voters so far, the same share as at this point in 2020.

The numbers tell a slightly different story in Georgia, where the share of ballots cast among White voters has increased to 64% at this point, compared with 62% in 2020. Black voters have decreased their share of the vote to 29%, compared with 31% at this point four years ago. Shares among Asian and Latino voters remain the same as they were in 2020, at 3% each.

In Georgia, 56% of votes so far have been cast by women – a share that’s the same as it was at this point four years ago.

And in Wisconsin, where 989,000 early votes have been cast, 90% of voters for whom Catalist has data so far are White and 4% are Black, basically the same as at this point in 2020.

Shares among men and women have stayed around the same as four years ago in the Badger State, at 44% for men and 55% for women.

CNN’s Edward Wu contributed to this report.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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