Early Voting Results Complementary Interest for the Contestants

A man walks out of the Board of Elections Loop Super Site after casting his ballot in the 2024 presidential election on the second day of early voting in Chicago on Oct. 4, 2024. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)

States have long allowed at least some Americans to vote early, like members of the military and people with illnesses unable to get to the polls. Many states expanded eligibility in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic

In the last presidential election, mail ballots tended to skew Democratic. In 2020, 60% of Democrats reported voting by mail, compared to 32% of Republicans, according to a 2021 study from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.

As of Sunday morning, over 74 million ballots have been cast nationwide.

Here is a breakdown of where early ballots have been cast, either by mail or in person, in the seven battleground states, according to The Associated Press. Some states, like Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania also provide a party breakdown of the early votes that have been cast.

Arizona – 2,218,682
Arizona early votes by party affiliation:
Democrats: 616,680
Republicans: 755,131
Third-party voters: 455,081

Georgia – 4,003,566

Michigan – 2,782,436

Nevada – 1,060,752
Nevada early votes by party affiliation:
Democrats: 269,941
Republicans: 309,157
Third-party voters: 207,339

North Carolina – 4,175,687
North Carolina early votes by party affiliation
Democrats: 1,106,301
Republicans: 1,148,621
Unaffiliated voters: 1,093,059
Third-party voters: 20,380

Pennsylvania – 1,742,908
Pennsylvania early votes by party affiliation
Democrats: 881,779
Republicans: 501,736
Third-party voters: 166,613

Wisconsin – 1,338,728

Over the past two decades, the prevalence of early voting has skyrocketed. While early ballots demonstrate voter enthusiasm, they do not reliably determine which candidate is winning the race, because fewer voters are expected to cast early votes than in the previous presidential election