Early voting turnout so far is larger than usual for a midterms election, according to the University of Florida.
Nearly 2.7 million people had cast their ballots by early Tuesday afternoon for the Nov. 8 election, according to data analyzed by the university’s U.S. Elections Project.
The turnout is on par with the record turnout recorded in the 2018 midterms.
Of this year's early voting total, more than 337,000 were cast in person and nearly 2.35 million were mailed in.
A total of 16.8 million mail-in ballots were requested, the Elections Project said.
Among 26 states that had begun early voting, Florida accounted for the highest total — the only state with at least 600,000 ballots cast.
The swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania joined Illinois, New Jersey, and Virginia in states that had received at least 400,000 ballots.
"It's clear that we are above the 2018 midterm at the same point in time in states where we have comparable data to look at," Michael McDonald, professor at the University of Florida, told ABC News.
"We do know that interest is running high for the election. We can see the sorts of indicators that would suggest that we're in for a high-turnout election, much like we had in 2018. And 2018, was the highest midterm turnout rate since 1914."
Based on 14 states that provided party registration data, more Democrats (52.5%) than Republicans (31.3) voted early, with the rest (16.2) of the ballots being from unaffiliated voters or voters registered with minor parties.
Early voting periods range in length from four days to 45 days before Election Day, with an average length of 19 days, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
According to voting data, from 2006-18:
- In-person voting on Election Day decreased from 80% to 60%.
- Early in-person voting increased from 5.8% to 16.7%.
- Early mail-in voting increased from 13.8% to 22.3%.
"What we're observing here is that some people have changed their behavior. They're either voting early, where they may not have done so in a past midterm election, or they're voting sooner than they would have," McDonald told ABC News.
"Those are both things that we saw in 2020, where people were not only voting by mail, and in person early at greater frequencies than they had past elections, but they were also voting earlier than they had in prior presidential elections."
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