At long last, we are voting for the 2026 primaries. I will do my thing with the numbers as we go. Let’s recap where we are and what we’re doing. Here are the final daily EV reports for the 2022 and 2018 primaries. And here are the final turnout numbers:
2022 turnout:
2018 turnout:
Democrats surely had the greater motivation in 2018, and Republicans in 2022, just due to the Presidential situation each year. Dems are clearly motivated this year, but Republicans have one of the biggest contested primaries with their Senate three-way, so we’ll see how that shakes out. Here’s the Day One EV report, and here’s the comparison chart:
Year Mail Early Total
=====================================
2018 Dem 4,174 3,833 8,007
2018 GOP 6,138 3,509 9,647
2022 Dem 2,621 4,585 7,206
2022 GOP 1,432 5,230 6,662
2026 Dem 1,512 12,015 13,527
2026 GOP 1,125 8,454 9,579
Opening advantage goes to the Dems, with significantly more in person turnout. Dems had a Day One lead in 2022 as well, but that was based on mail ballots. Dems had a small in person lead on Day One in 2018, and caught up to Republicans soon enough. The in person totals this year are significantly higher for each party compared to the previous years. We could be in for quite a ride.
Note also that the trend in mail ballots is down again. I presume this is in part some continued response to the tightening of qualifications and requirements after 2020. Dems have 11,105 total mail ballots sent out, Republicans only have 6,642 of them. Dems will almost certainly end up with an advantage here as well, though probably a modest one just because there’s only so much room for it.
I will note that in 2018, like this year, the Monday of the first week of Early Voting was Presidents Day, so Day One was Tuesday for them. In 2022, Presidents Day fell on the second Monday of the EV period, so its first day was the first Monday. That means that the first week was six days in 2018 and will be six days this year, while the first week was seven days in 2022. There were only four days in the second week of 2022, so all three periods were eleven days long. Confusing, I know. Because of this, I’ll probably refrain from further comparisons until next week, when we’re all at the same number of days voted for each year. I’ll check in on turnout around the state and note any interesting trends. When do you plan to vote?