Stewart attributes early-voting surge to enthusiasm and spending to encourage early voting

Early ballot totals do not yet establish overall turnout

By Friday morning, nearly 21 million Americans had cast ballots in the midterm elections, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, which tracks voting by mail and in person. Charles Stewart, a political science professor at MIT and founding director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, told NPR’s Morning Edition that the increase reflected both voter enthusiasm and campaign spending on mobilization. He also said the early count did not necessarily indicate that more Americans would vote overall.

Stewart’s caution centered on people who vote before Election Day but would otherwise have voted on Election Day. Because many early voters fall into that group, he said, a surge in ballots cast ahead of Election Day cannot by itself establish whether total participation will rise. The Election Lab’s early figures document the timing and method of voting, not the eventual turnout total.

He attributed part of the increase to campaigns spending money to encourage supporters to vote early and to what he called retail politics. “It also kind of reflects the large amount of money that’s in this campaign that’s going into retail politics, going door to door, and just making sure that supporters are energized,” he said. That spending and mobilization effort, alongside voter enthusiasm, helps explain why so many ballots were already cast, Stewart said.

Stewart also said he was seeing changes in how Democrats and Republicans were voting. Democrats still had an advantage in voting by mail, but the gap was smaller than in 2022 as more Democrats shifted to early in-person voting. Republicans had a slight advantage in early in-person voting, which Stewart said could narrow.

Maine and Iowa stood out in the early-voting activity. Stewart described the two states as not having been major battlegrounds in recent elections. He said the numbers there reflect voter enthusiasm and campaign efforts to mobilize supporters in places that had not seen as much political activity in recent years.

A separate NPR item reported that AIPAC halted endorsements and direct contributions to candidates.

In an interview with NPR’s A Martínez, Stewart also discussed whether concerns about the U.S. Postal Service and Trump’s opposition to mail voting are changing how Americans vote. He said polls still matter even though they cannot predict exactly what will happen on Election Day.

A separate NPR item warned that mailing a ballot close to Election Day may get the ballot rejected for a late postmark.

The early count documents substantial participation, shifts in voting method and areas where campaigns have concentrated mobilization. Stewart said it leaves the broader turnout question open because it does not separate early voters who would have voted on Election Day from additional participants.

That distinction also explains why it can take a while to know who won in some midterm races. Stewart said the early-voting figures for Maine and Iowa reflected voter enthusiasm and campaign mobilization. The early count did not establish how many more Americans would vote overall or resolve the outcomes of races still awaiting returns.