Final EV total 2021 = 114,060
Final EV total 2017 = 60,974
Day Five EV total 2025 = 63,969
So less than halfway through early voting this year, we have exceeded the entire EV total from 2017, and are more than halfway to the 2021 final EV total. Putting the latter another way, we’re 56% of the way to the 2021 final EV total after 42% of the early voting period.
What does it all mean? Probably not all that much, at least in comparison to 2021. Maybe more people will cast an early ballot. In 2021, 49.8% of all ballots were early, and the trend is up, as it was 40.4% early in 2019 and 53.4% early in 2023. I’m sure we have more registered voters now than we did in 2021, so the turnout rate so far may be lower. There’s a lot we still don’t know.
And on the flip side, Week 2 of early voting tends to be at a higher level overall than Week 1. We may have completed 42% of the early voting period, but that doesn’t mean we’ve gotten 42% of the early votes so far. A busy Week 2 could change the calculations quite a bit.
I also couldn’t tell you who if anyone might benefit from relatively higher turnout versus lower. It’s not a partisan election year and neither of the two marquee races have serious Republican candidates. Republicans overperformed in the At Large races in 2023, but they have also benefitted in the past from multiple-Dems-and-one-Republican fields, giving them a clear path to the runoff. That’s not the case in the AL4 race this year. Heck, it’s not even the case in CD18.
Anyway. I just wanted to give a numeric update. You know me, I’ll start with one number and go from there, I can’t help it. I’ll probably do one more of these during the week and then an end-of-EV summary. Have you voted yet?
UPDATE: Saturday was relatively quiet, with 9,529 total votes cast and an updated cumulative of 73,497. On to Week 2!