More than 9.2 million pre-election ballots cast nationally as early and absentee voting continues ahead of the 2022 midterms

By Ethan Cohen, CNN

More than 9.2 million pre-election ballots have been cast across 40 states, according to data from election officials, Edison Research and Catalist. Pre-election voting remains on pace with 2018, the highest midterm voter turnout in recent history, across the states where Catalist has data for both cycles.

However, it’s still too early to say if total voter turnout will exceed 2018, as voting habits may have significantly shifted in recent years.

Florida continues to have the largest number of pre-election ballots cast with nearly 1.4 million. More than 90% of those ballots were cast by mail. Some Florida counties begin early in-person voting this week, but all counties are required to start by Saturday.

California was the second state with more than one million ballots cast, and Georgia crossed that threshold by midday Tuesday, according to Gabriel Sterling in the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.

Almost 640,000 pre-election votes have already been cast in Pennsylvania, where John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz meet tonight for their only debate in the commonwealth’s critical Senate race.

Democrats make up a wide majority of voters who have already cast a ballot in the Keystone State. As of Tuesday, 73% of Pennsylvania voters so far have been Democrats, while 19% have been Republicans. While the scale is smaller, the breakdown is similar to this point two years ago, when 73% of votes had been cast by Democrats and 18% had been cast by Republicans.

These data aren’t predictive of ultimate outcomes. In recent years Democrats have been more likely to vote before Election Day while Republicans have preferred to vote on Election Day.

Some voter data comes from Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue-advocacy organizations and is giving insights into who is voting before November.

Pre-election voters are generally older in Pennsylvania than they were at this point in 2020. 88% of Pennsylvania voters so far have been 40 or older, up from 81% at this point in 2020.

That’s largely driven by an increase among voters aged 65 and older. Those voters have cast 60% of pre-election ballots so far, while two years ago they’d cast 50%. The largest drops have come among voters 22-29, who have gone from 7% two years ago to 4% now, and voters 30-39, who have gone from 11% two years ago to 7% now.

So far, Pennsylvania’s pre-election electorate is also made up of more White voters than it was at this point in 2020. 88% of Pennsylvania voters so far are White, and 8% are Black. At this point two years ago, 81% of voters were White and 13% were Black.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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