But with early voting for the midterms underway in nearly every state, tens of millions of Americans have already cast their ballots, offering an initial glimpse into how the pivotal elections may play out.
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elections → cast → glimpse
With days of early voting left to go before Election Day on Nov. 3, that figure already represents more than a quarter of the roughly 122 million Americans who voted in the 2022 midterms.
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who → leave → midterms
Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida who runs the Election Lab, stresses to TIME that early voting data cannot in and of itself be relied on to predict the outcome of the elections.
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data → run → elections
But he says it can reveal other informative aspects of voting behavior.
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it → say → behavior
“Once you start seeing consistency across multiple days of voting and across multiple states, it starts giving us more confidence that whatever we're seeing in terms of relative engagement, that's likely going to carry through to election day,” McDonald says.
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McDonald → start → day
Here are some of the notable trends emerging in the early voting data as Election Day nears.
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Day → emerge → data
Democrats are outpacing Republicans in early ballots
Registered Democrats so far represent a larger share of early voters in the midterms than Republicans, having cast roughly 45% of early ballots compared to 31% cast by GOP voters, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab data.
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Democrats → outpace → data
Another 24% of Americans who have voted early are not registered with either party.
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who → vote → party
This data is only available for the 27 states that have a formal party registration system, and signifies only the party with which a voter is registered, not the candidates selected on their ballot.
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voter → have → ballot
Experts caution that Democrats’ higher turnout in the early vote does not guarantee they’ll maintain that edge, with tens of millions more Americans still expected to show up at the polls.
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Americans → caution → polls
Republicans are anticipated to make up ground on Election Day, as they have in recent years.
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they → anticipate → years
A Pew Research survey conducted following the 2024 midterm elections showed that nearly 40% of registered Republican voters cast their ballot in person on Election Day, compared to 28% of registered Democratic voters.
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% → conduct → voters
“We expect the Democrats to build up a lead in the early vote, and Election Day tends to be a Republican day, so you can't just look at the early vote as it is now,” McDonald tells TIME.
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McDonald → expect → TIME
Polling has shown, however, that Democratic engagement and enthusiasm is higher than it is for Republicans in the lead-up to the elections.
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it → show → elections
According to a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll released on Tuesday, 52% of likely voters said they would back the Democratic candidate in their House district, while 44% would back the Republican candidate.
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% → accord → candidate
Independent likely voters favored Democratic candidates by 13 points.
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voters → favor → points
More Democrats than Republicans also said in the survey they were very enthusiastic about voting, at 71% and 61% respectively.
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they → say → %
Another poll from the Pew Research Center earlier this month similarly showed greater engagement and stated motivation from voters backing Democrats: 78% of voters who voiced support for the Democratic candidate in their House district said who controls Congress “really matters,” compared to 69% of voters who backed Republican candidates who said the same.
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who → show → same
Such polls have suggested a “blue wave” of Democratic support might determine the midterms, but Republicans have pushed back against the numbers.
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Republicans → suggest → numbers
Bernard Fraga, a political science professor at Emory University, tells TIME that the relative lack of Republican enthusiasm in polls and trailing GOP turnout in early voting shows that support within the party, and for President Donald Trump, has waned.
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support → tell → Trump
“This is a story about Democrats who voted in 2024 persisting, and Republicans who voted in 2024 so far at least staying home,” he says.
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he → vote → 2024
The midterms come as Trump’s approval rating has hit near record lows amid widespread dissatisfaction with his handling of the war in Iran and the economy.
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rating → come → Iran
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday put Trump’s approval rating at 32%, up one percentage point from last week, when the same poll recorded the lowest approval rating of his second term.
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poll → release → term
Fraga says that Republicans are frustrated with what he describes as “failures” of the Trump Administration, which he asserts have decreased GOP voters’ support for their party and led them to stay home rather than casting ballots early.
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he → say → ballots
“Even for steadfast Republican voters, they look at the state of the economy, for example, and say that they're not too enthusiastic about voting,” he says.
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he → look → voting
“Reading the trends, it's clear that Democrats are enthusiastic and mobilized to a much greater degree than even the Republican voters.”
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Democrats → read → voters
Simon Rosenberg, a long-time Democratic strategist, contends that independents are also more likely to be voting in favor of Democrats, given recent polling, which has shown that more independent likely voters support Democratic candidates.
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voters → contend → candidates
One YouGov poll found that 54% of independents said they’d vote for Democratic candidates, versus 27% who said they’d vote for Republican candidates.
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they → find → candidates
Another PBS/NPR/Marist poll showed that independents favored Democrats by a margin of 25 points.
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independents → show → points
Given such polling, Rosenberg believes that the number of people voting for Democratic candidates is actually higher than the partisan breakdown in early voting data explicitly indicates.
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breakdown → give → data
Hispanic voters are turning out early in higher numbers than other recent elections
Rosenberg says that the most significant data coming out of early voting is the number of Hispanic people voting early.
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data → turn → people
So far, Hispanic early voting participation is outpacing its levels at the same point in the election cycle in 2022 and 2024.
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participation → outpace → 2022
Presidential election years such as 2024 typically yield higher voter turnout, which Rosenberg says makes the 2026 figures to date all the more notable and surprising.
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figures → yield → date
“It's almost certain that this heightened performance will carry over through Election Day, and that this will become one of the big storylines of the election,” he says.
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he → heighten → election
“It's a universal trend that we're seeing all across the country.”
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we → see → country
In one of the most closely watched—and expensive—Senate races this year, James Talarico is vying to become the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Texas since 1988 in a tightly contested battle against the state’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.
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Talarico → watch → General
Over 4 million votes have been cast early, or an estimated 41% of the total votes expected in the race, according to tracking by VoteHub.
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votes → cast → VoteHub
As of Monday, Talarico held a narrow two-point lead in the early vote.
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Talarico → hold → vote
The state's Hispanic population, one of the highest in the U.S. per capita, represents 24% of the vote as of Monday, according to VoteHub, a percentage point higher than the share it made up in the final vote tally in the 2024 election.
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it → represent → election
Another analysis reported by The Texas Tribune showed that the Hispanic early vote in Texas has already surpassed the early vote numbers from 2024 and 2022.
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vote → report → 2024
…and 17 more, not listed.
The Aporia
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