Greetings everyone. We are nine days out, tens of millions of people have voted, and I wanted to go a little more in depth in what we are seeing in the early vote and what it might mean for the election itself. Consider this more of a sketch than a complete painting for while there are things we can see in the data so far there is a lot that we just aren’t sure about yet.
But I want to be clear that looking at how people are voting in an election can tell you something about how people are voting in the election!
What follows has been put together from the TargetEarly early vote data, recent polling, Exit Polls from over the years, and my own experience in recent cycles analyzing the early vote and elections. I warn you in advance it is data rich and might be confusing for folks, as admittedly, it is even a bit confusing for me right now.
First, here’s where the national early vote stands today via TargetEarly’s noon update. We are up 2 points over 2022, 11 points over 2024, and turnout is running higher than 2022 when the early vote was 50% of the total vote (in 2024 it was 54% of the total). This is good.
We also know that Democrats are voting less by mail this time - as we hoped - which means more of our vote will come in person this time. This meaningful change in how people are voting makes it a bit harder to make cycle to cycle comparisons, particularly in states without a lot of in-person voting so far.
One of the things that makes interpreting the early vote challenging is there is a lot of unaffiliated or independent vote in the data. We also don’t know how partisans themselves are voting for we only know whether someone has voted not how they’ve voted**.** We do know from polling that our candidates are doing well with independent voters and even some Republicans, so our 2026 vote is almost certainly more Democratic than top line Democrat and Republican totals suggest. Let’s look a little deeper at the independent vote this time.
First, note that in many polls these past few weeks the vote intent of independents is as high as Republicans, which shows a lot of motivation among independent voters. In other words, they are pissed. This is new data from CBS:
We know Trump’s job approval is terrible among independent voters but we also know that indies are favoring us this cycle at a much higher rate than recent elections. Here’s a summary of recent polls of the generic ballot among independent voters:
Using +19 Dem as an estimate here’s how that would compare to other recent elections. Big yikes for the Rs:
This means that any of the data you see about the early vote in 2026 using just the Dem and GOP registration or modeled party is likely to be more Democratic than top line data you are seeing. Some of our vote is hiding in the independent column this cycle.
Next, as we’ve been discussing we know now that young people, Blacks, and Hispanics are voting at much higher rates this time than 2022. Here’s the latest summary from the noon TargetEarly release:
While the data bounces around from update to update it has been remarkably consistent. So more young people, Blacks, and Hispanics are voting. What do we know about how they are likely to vote, particularly given our struggles in 2024? Let’s look.
Without going through all the math and sourcing of the data (for time and space reasons) I took recent polling of young people, Blacks, and Hispanics and compared it to the historic performance of each group. First, young people:
Next, Blacks:
Next, Hispanics:
So what this data tells us is that not only are more young people, Blacks, and Hispanics voting than in 2022 but in each case the vote will be more Dem than in 2022 and certainly more than 2024. So more votes, higher Dem share = lots more Dem votes this time. That’s good, everyone.
Finally, the Dem performance that we can track by state varies wildly from state to state this year, making it hard to assert broad trends. Some of this is a data issue, as states without party registration are just harder to see into even with the “Modeled Party” capacity of TargetEarly. So what I’m going to share now are states where the data is very clear that we are performing incredibly well, and remember the swing of indies to us gives us a bit more vote in each place.
Georgia. Ds are running 6 points over 2022, and 17 points above 2024. Turnout is keeping pace with 2022.
Kansas. Dems are running 15 points higher than 2022, and 20 points higher than 2024. Overall turnout is also running way, way above 2022:
Nebraska. Dems are running 10 points higher than 2022 and 9 points higher than 2024. Turnout is also running ahead of 2022:
North Carolina. Dems are running 13 points ahead of 2022, and 22 points ahead of 2024. Turnout is also running way, way above 2022. Anderson Clayton is kicking ass!
We are also performing very well in Alaska, Indiana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Texas. As we get more in person vote in over the coming days I will try to do a more complete update of the state data.
So, this was a sketch of what we know about the early vote nine days out. As the results so far in the states varies significant state to state, and we are seeing Dems voting very differently this time, we have to be very careful about not over interpreting what we are seeing. But there are a few things we know…
The surge of young people, Blacks, and Hispanics voting so far is very encouraging for us. That one of the story lines of this election might end up being that Hispanic voters played a major role in voting out the rancid racists would be a righteous thing.
Polling shows that independents have swung towards us so decisively and are highly motivated to vote. So much of the early vote analysis that breaks things out as Democrat and Republican is underestimating our vote share, as some of our vote is living in the unaffiliated/independent column.
We are running way ahead of 2024 right now across the country, and a little bit less ahead of 2022.
There are states where we seeing standout Dem performance.
For those on line you may have noticed that there are dozens of right-wing accounts attempting to influence the discourse around the early vote. Like their efforts to manipulate polls that we’ve discussed here, you can see the desperation Republicans feel about the election in what has become an almost hysterical effort to manufacture good news from the early vote.
That’s what we know so far, and we also know looking all this data that we cannot let up for one minute. Polling tells us that voters have broken to us in recent weeks, things are close across the Senate battlegrounds, and now we need to go bring that vote in, run up the score, win this thing in October, and kick their asses in November! - Simon
