Early voters are showing up in numbers that outpace past midterms, and in several battleground states, registered Democrats are casting ballots at a noticeably higher rate than Republicans so far.
Quick Take
- North Carolina’s first day of early in-person voting jumped nearly 47% over 2022, with Democrats outvoting Republicans by almost 28 points.
- Georgia’s advance voters lean roughly 50% Democratic primary history versus 36% Republican, based on voter-file estimates.
- Nationwide early and mail voting topped 9.5 million ballots by mid-October, according to NBC News tracking.
- No Kings rallies held across the country pushed attendees to vote early, though organizers billed the events as nonpartisan.
- Election experts caution that early numbers can shift once Election Day turnout is counted.
Early Voting Numbers Point to a Democratic Edge in Key States
North Carolina kicked off early in-person voting with 201,609 ballots cast on day one, up sharply from 137,387 in 2022. Registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by nearly 28 points among those early voters, a far wider gap than the two-point edge Democrats held on the first day of 2024, according to state election board data cited by CNN.
The New York Times’ early-vote tracker found a similar pattern building through mid-October. Of North Carolina’s early and mail voters, 45% were registered Democrats, 20% were Republicans, and 35% were unaffiliated. By October 17, the state had logged 501,762 early and mail ballots, well ahead of the 362,628 recorded at the same point in 2022.
Georgia tells a similar story, though with a twist. The state doesn’t register voters by party, so analysts rely on primary-election history to estimate political leanings. Using that method, the Times found Georgia’s advance electorate was about 50% made up of people with a Democratic primary history, compared to 36% with a Republican history and 13% with no primary record at all.
No Kings Rallies Added a Get-Out-the-Vote Push
As the early-voting window opened, No Kings rallies drew crowds in cities from Boston to Chicago, with organizers urging attendees to cast their ballots right away. NBC News described the events as nonpartisan gatherings that grew out of demonstrations against President Trump, even as they doubled as early-voting pep rallies.
In Boston and across New England, rally organizers specifically pointed attendees toward early polling locations, part of a coordinated push to turn street-level energy into ballots before Election Day. Chicago-area rallies followed the same playbook, with speakers framing early voting as a way to lock in turnout before momentum could fade.
Nationally, the early and mail vote total had already climbed past 9.5 million ballots by October 19, according to NBC News’s running tracker, a sign that both the rallies and routine campaign mobilization were drawing voters to the polls weeks ahead of schedule.
Why Early Numbers Don’t Guarantee a Final Outcome
Ballots already cast measure participation, not necessarily preference. Unaffiliated voters made up over a third of North Carolina’s early electorate, and party registration doesn’t reveal how any individual actually voted. Academic research on vote-by-mail expansion has consistently found that easier voting access tends to raise turnout modestly but rarely shifts partisan vote share in a lasting way.
History also urges caution. The Times noted that North Carolina’s early Democratic advantage has narrowed as Election Day approached in both 2022 and 2024, meaning snapshots taken weeks out don’t always hold. NewsNation likewise cautioned that early-vote trends don’t reliably predict who shows up on the actual Election Day, leaving room for Republicans to close the gap with strong final-day turnout.
1/2
After an unprecedented Democratic advantage on day 1 of early voting and an unusual Republican (partial) clawback on day 2, day three brought some normalcy.Democrats padded their lead a bit, which is normal on Saturdays. They will pad it more tomorrow.
Data link below pic.twitter.com/Dwg1sJpq5l
— Andy Jackson (@andyinrok) October 18, 2026
CNN’s reporting backs that caution up with real examples. Early Democratic advantages that looked strong at the start of voting in states like Ohio and Virginia have since shrunk as more ballots came in, a reminder that these are moving numbers, not locked-in results. Conservative voters have historically leaned toward Election Day turnout over early voting, a pattern that could again bend the final tally in ways the early snapshot doesn’t capture.
What’s clear right now is the volume: more people are voting earlier than in past midterms, and Democrats currently hold a registration edge among those who’ve already cast ballots in North Carolina and Georgia. What remains unsettled is whether that edge survives contact with the full electorate once polls close and every vote, including the traditionally Republican-heavy Election Day turnout, gets counted.
Sources:
nbcnews.com, nytimes.com, nbcboston.com, nbcchicago.com, cnn.com, newsnationnow.com
