Early voting passes 50.5 million with three days to go before midterms

Registered Democrats outpace Republicans among early voters in states reporting party data

More than 50.5 million Americans have cast early votes in the midterm elections as of Saturday morning, according to an analysis by the University of Florida, with three days to go before Tuesday’s election. The count is already nearly 5 million higher than the total number of early votes cast in the last midterm elections, in 2022.

Voter enthusiasm appears strongest among Democrats. According to the states that collate party affiliation information, 10.7 million registered Democrats have voted so far, compared with 7.8 million registered Republicans. Those affiliations are not indicative of actual votes cast, and polling has shown widespread unhappiness with the presidency of Donald Trump and unusually close races in states Republicans usually win comfortably.

The election will decide the composition of the House of Representatives and Senate for the final two years of Trump’s second term. Republicans are defending a 53-47 Senate majority in a contest whose battleground map has expanded significantly, with Democrats aiming for victories in traditionally conservative-leaning states such as Texas, Alaska and Kansas, wins that could allow them to take control of the Senate. The rising costs of food, gasoline and other essentials, the Iran war and concern over government corruption form the backdrop to the voting.

Texas, central to Democratic ambitions, accounts for a large share of the surge. More than 7 million people in the state have already voted early, University of Florida data shows, 1.5 million more than the number who voted early in Texas during the 2022 midterms.

In Harris County, which includes Houston, 862,700 people had voted as of Wednesday, an Associated Press analysis found, compared with 564,500 at the same point in 2022. The county has voted reliably Democratic in recent elections, though by varying margins: in 2024, Kamala Harris defeated Trump there by nearly 6% in the presidential contest, while Democratic Senate candidate Colin Allred carried it by roughly 11% over the incumbent Republican senator, Ted Cruz.

This year, Texas’s Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, faces the Democrat James Talarico in a closely watched Senate race, while the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, is seeking re-election against the Democrat Gina Hinojosa. Hundreds of millions of dollars have poured into the Senate race as Republicans fight to defend a state where Democrats have not won a statewide election in more than three decades. Trump visited Texas earlier this week, his third trip there in a month.

Early voting has also increased in other close-fought Senate races, according to the AP. In South Carolina, which Trump won by nearly 18% in the 2024 presidential election, early voting is up 83% compared with the 2022 midterms. In Kansas, where another unusually tight Senate battle is under way in a normally reliable Republican state, early voting is up 34%. In Maine it is up 44%, and in Michigan, the site of another key Senate race, it is up 32%.

Trump has sought to lift Republican candidates with rallies held across various previously safe states, campaigning while polls show widespread unhappiness with his presidency. The Guardian reported that the effort has included the president commenting repeatedly on the physical appearance of candidates and dismissing alarm over rising gasoline costs as secondary to the profits of fossil fuel companies.

Trump hinted at the toil of the schedule at a rally in Florida on Friday night. “I thought this was it,” he said. “I thought I could relax. Twenty-eight days of this crap in a row is a lot. It’s a lot.”