With just five days until Election Day, more than 68 million Americans have already voted, according to the University of Florida Election Lab. But what this data portends about the outcome of next week’s election depends largely on who you ask.

The campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are heading into election week and projecting optimism about their chances.

“We feel really good about what we’re seeing,” a senior Harris campaign official said Thursday. “We are very focused on making sure our entire organization does everything possible to ensure our votes are successful. »

“President Trump continues to lead in poll after poll, Republicans have made massive gains in voter registration, and we are far surpassing our share of early voting compared to two or four years ago in all battleground states,” said Karoline, national press secretary for the Trump campaign. Leavitt said in a statement to Scripps News. “Voters know Kamala Harris destroyed our country, but President Trump is going to fix it – and that’s why he’s well-positioned for victory on November 5.”

Behind the controversy, however, experts on both sides say the race remains extremely close — but that Harris heads into Election Day from a position of strength.

This might seem inconsistent with early insights from early voting data; In several battleground states, more Republicans appear to have voted early than Democrats, and Republicans are voting early at a significantly higher rate than they were in 2020.

As of Friday night in Nevada, for example, more than 290,000 registered Republicans have voted so far, while only 253,000 registered Democrats have voted, according to market research firm TargetSmart. At this point in 2020, about 13,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans had voted.

Similar trends appear in early voting data from North Carolina and Georgia, although the latter does not require voters to share their party affiliation when registering, so estimating their ideology requires more conjectures.

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Still, the data might not be as bad for Democrats as it seems. According to TargetSmart analysis, a significant share of Republicans voting early will likely have voted on Election Day in 2020, meaning Republicans may not attract new voters as much as they shift their votes early.

“About 94% of all Republicans who have voted so far in Pennsylvania voted in 2020,” said Tom Bonier, TargetSmart senior advisor and longtime Democratic strategist. Republicans are not “producing new votes,” Bonier added, but rather “just moving people who were voting anyway on Election Day and getting them out early.”

This data also reflects what the Harris campaign is seeing internally, according to senior campaign advisers. In Nevada, nearly three times as many Republican voters as Democratic voters cast ballots on Election Day, officials said, citing what was described to Scripps News as “the modeling is based on voter records data.” voters and high-quality follow-up surveys. In Georgia, twice as many Republicans who had already voted waited until Election Day last time.

“They’re just changing the way they vote,” a senior Harris campaign official said. “They are moving from being Election Day voters to early voting, instead of attracting new voters. »

Even some Republicans have admitted that comparing 2024 voting trends to those of the 2020 presidential election might not be very fruitful, given that the last election took place during a historic pandemic and voters’ preferences have likely changed. changed since then.

The last presidential election was during Covid and we were in the middle of a pretty dramatic shift in how people were voting and when they were voting,” a Republican strategist told Scripps News. “I just don’t think it necessarily tells a defining story, based on the volume of early voting this time around, that a lot of people are trying to extrapolate from.”

Overall, the total number of early voters who have cast ballots so far has decreased compared to 2020 numbers – which was expected given the easing of pandemic restrictions. “Each group is actually in decline in early voting compared to four years ago,” Bonier said. “It’s just a matter of which groups have declined the most.”

Certainly, there are some positive trends for the Trump campaign. In Arizona, for example, registration and turnout are particularly strong among white men — a group largely expected to support Trump.

And the Trump campaign has been quick to point out the slight advantage the former president maintains in recent polls in swing states, with campaign pollster Tony Fabrizo noting in a note that public polling averages place Trump in a significantly better position today than it was four years ago. years ago.

There are other positive signs for Harris, however. Battleground voters who made up their minds last week went for Harris by a “double-digit margin,” a senior campaign adviser said Friday. Similarly, there is evidence that female voters – another group expected to support Harris more than Trump – are more present in key battlegrounds than men.

Overall, experts agree that the race remains historically close.

“I’ve never seen a race this long and this intense that, at least according to the polls, is truly a head-to-head race,” the Republican strategist said.

Like all elections, who wins will ultimately depend on how many voters turn out on Election Day – and how well campaigns can mobilize their supporters. The Harris campaign invested heavily in this so-called ground game operation, while Trump’s team largely outsourced the effort to Elon Musk and other outside groups.

“No one has any idea how this is going to happen,” noted the Republican strategist. “It could go wonderfully, or it couldn’t. We just don’t know and we won’t know until it’s over.

Scripps News reporter Haley Bull contributed to this report.