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    • Republicans have narrowed Democrats’ advantage in early voting. Will this matter?
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    Republicans have narrowed Democrats’ advantage in early voting. Will this matter?

    Umito Posted on

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    WASHINGTON – Republicans have reduced Democrats’ recent advantage in early voting – including in key battleground states – by placing the vice president Kamala Harris behind Democrats four years ago in the preliminary vote count.

    This follows a concerted effort by the Republican candidate that of Donald Trump campaign to encourage supporters to embrace early voting, including mail-in voting, after the former president demonized the practice as the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic collided with the 2020 election.

    Trump during a campaign rally Wednesday in Duluth, Georgiabragged about the critical swing state’s record early voting numbers, declaring that “people have never seen anything like this.” But election data experts say there’s no clear conclusion to draw from Republicans’ gains in early voting, and Harris allies insist the trend is no cause for panic for their troops.

    ELECTION UPDATES: Live updates and latest polls from Trump and Harris’ election campaigns on Friday

    Democratic strategists say they expected Republicans to make gains because of Trump’s new focus on early voting and a shift among Democrats who voted by mail for health reasons during a global pandemic contagious and they expect that they will now wait to vote on November 5th.

    As of Thursday, nearly 30 million Americans had voted early – either in person or by mail. according to the University of Florida Election Labwho tracks the numbers every day. More than 100 million people voted in early 2020 out of a total of about 158 ​​million votes cast in one race. won by the DemocratPresident Joe Biden.

    In states where voters can register by party in 2024, 42% of votes cast came from registered Democrats, while 35% came from registered Republicans. Another 23% come from voters who are not registered with any party.

    This is a smaller early voting lead for Democrats than in 2020. In that election, Democrats accounted for 45% of early votes cast in states where parties are registered, compared to 31% for Republicans. and 24% affiliated with neither party. Trump and the Republicans dominated Election Day voting in 2020, but not enough to retain the White House for a second straight term.

    With 12 days until Election Day, Republicans have cut Democrats’ 14 percentage point advantage in early voting in half from 2020.. That’s now a 7-point advantage for Democrats.

    “This time around, it appears Trump has given his supporters the green light to vote in person early,” said Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida who oversees the election lab.

    He noted, however, that it appears many loyal Trump supporters who voted on Election Day in 2020 are voting early this year.. This is a factor that could “cannibalize” the Republicans’ historically stronger score on Election Day itself.

    “It looks like there’s some furniture reshuffling, but who knows exactly to what extent,” McDonald said. “Anyway, if I had to step back, it’s a good thing for the Trump campaign that more voters are voting early.”

    Republicans make progress by voting in advance on the battlefields

    In four of the seven most contested battleground states – Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada – voters can register by party.

    • In Pennsylvania – where early voting takes place entirely by mail – 61% of the 1.2 million votes cast were voted for by registered Democrats, compared to 29% by registered Republicans and 9% by unaffiliated voters. At the same time in 2020, Democratic voters represented for 72% of returned ballots, Republicans 19% and unaffiliated 9%.
    • In North Carolina, where 2 million early votes were cast in person or by mail, 35% came from registered Democrats, 34% from registered Republicans and 31% from voters not registered in either party. At this same point in 2020, Democrats represented for 43% of the state’s early and absentee votes, Republicans 28% and unaffiliated voters 29%.
    • In Nevada, where every voter receives an absentee ballot, 40% of ballots come from registered Republicans, 37% from registered Democrats and 23% from unaffiliated voters. At the same time in 2020, Democrats accounted for 45% of Nevada’s early votes and Republicans accounted for 33%.
    • In Arizona, 42% of returned mail-in ballots came from registered Republicans, 36% from registered Democrats and 22% from unaffiliated voters. At the same time in 2020, Democratic voters accounted for 44% of early votes in Arizona and Republicans accounted for 34% of the vote.

    The Democratic and Republican parties’ shares of early voting will continue to change until Election Day. And in some states, other factors come into play. Arizona has more registered Republicans than Democrats, for example, even though Biden won the state four years ago.

    In Nevada, a new law on automatic voter registration increased the number of voters not registered with any party. Democrats say they believe these unaffiliated voters are turning to them.

    Tom Bonier, CEO of TargetSmart, a Democratic-aligned company that tracks early voting numbers, said Democrats were more “COVID conscious” in 2020 than Republican voters and therefore more likely to vote early.

    As more Democrats move from early voting in 2020 to voting on Election Day this year, and Republicans do the opposite, Republicans win early voting were expected, Bonier wrote Thursday in an analysis on Substack, warning people not to draw sweeping conclusions from the votes cast so far.

    “Given that it was expected, is this a sign of (Republican) intensity?” Bonier said in an interview with USA TODAY. “We don’t know at this point.”

    Trump changes tone on early voting

    Before the 2020 election, Trump repeatedly attacked early mail-in voting with false accusations about the legitimacy of mail-in ballots. The former president’s rhetoric helped Biden and Democrats build a sizable lead thanks to early votes cast before in-person voting began on Election Day.

    In a reversal this year, the Trump campaign encouraged early and mail-in voting in 2024 to avoid the same thing scenario Again.

    A record 2.1 million people voted early, in person or by mail, in Georgia, which is not among the battleground states where parties are registered. North Carolina also broke early voting records.

    “We are far surpassing our share of early voting compared to two to four years ago in every battleground state,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said in a statement, adding that Trump is “well positioned for victory.” November 5.”

    The Harris campaign downplayed Republican gains in early voting, pointing to the sharp increase in Democratic early voting during the pandemic in 2020 and the new emphasis Trump placed on early voting this year.

    “There is no evidence that these early results suggest a broader increase in Republican Party participation in this election,” Harris campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said. “Instead, Trump no longer openly mocks early voting as he did in 2020, so more of his core supporters are choosing to use it now.”

    The Harris campaign also cited public voter file data indicating that many Republicans who voted in early 2024 were Election Day voters in 2020. The campaign also says it is encouraged by the turnout of black voters in Detroit and women black people in Georgia, among other trends.

    A USA Today/Suffolk University polltaken October 14-18, found Harris leading Trump among those who have already voted, 63% to 34%. Likely voters who said they plan to wait until Election Day to vote prefer Trump, 52% to 35%.

    McDonald, the election lab director, said that while the Trump campaign has good reason to be pleased with Republican early voting, it is still too early in the early voting period to draw firm conclusions.

    For example, in North Carolina, he said organized efforts to get Black people to vote have yet to take off and young voters typically wait until the final week of in-person early voting. He said those factors should boost Democratic early voting numbers in the Tar Heel State.

    “What’s that going to mean? It’s going to be really hard to say,” McDonald said, adding that the big question is how many fewer Republicans will vote on Election Day after more among them voted in advance. “This is going to be the wild card. How red is Election Day?”

    Contact Joey Garrison on X, formerly Twitter, @joeygarrison.

    Umito
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