Early Voting Breaks the Midterm Record: 47.9 Million Ballots by Midday Friday, Past All of 2022 With Days to Spare
The University of Florida Election Lab count passed 2022's entire early vote - 45.9 million - on Friday morning and reached 47,922,669 by midday. Whether total turnout matches 2018's 53 percent is the remaining question.
WASHINGTON - The early vote in the 2026 midterms has broken the record with days still to run. As of early Friday, more than 46 million Americans had cast ballots ahead of Election Day, eclipsing the entire early-voting turnout of the 2022 midterms, the North Dakota Monitor reported from University of Florida Election Lab data - and by midday Friday the Lab's count had reached 47,922,669 ballots, NewsCentral reported. The 2022 mark the count passed was 45.9 million early votes recorded before Election Day that year.
What remains open is the bigger record. It is still unclear whether 2026 will break the overall turnout mark of 2018, when 53 percent of eligible voters cast ballots - the highest rate in a midterm since 1914. Michael McDonald, the University of Florida political science professor who leads the Election Lab, said this week that based on the incoming data, overall turnout is shaping up to match 2018 participation. In Texas, more than six million people had voted before Election Day by Wednesday, and in-person early turnout nationally was running about 50 percent higher than at the same stage in 2022. McDonald also highlighted increased participation among Black and Hispanic voters in states that provide racial and ethnic data.
The composition figures come with the Lab's own limits. Of the early voters counted in states that register voters by party, 43.9 percent are registered Democrats, 31.3 percent registered Republicans and 24.8 percent have no party affiliation. Texas does not register voters by party, so no such split exists for the state's six-million-plus early voters, and registration is not a vote choice in any state. Analysts cautioned, as they have all month, that early-voting figures alone cannot indicate how the election will turn out - millions still vote on Election Day, and a surge in early ballots can mean voters moved their voting earlier rather than more voters overall. The record itself, though, is now a fact: no midterm has ever banked this many ballots before Election Day.
