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Source: PA Images
MORE THAN 22 million Americans have already voted in the 2020 election, a record rush of early votes fueled by Democratic enthusiasm and a pandemic that has transformed the way the nation votes.
The 22.2 million ballots submitted as of Friday night represent 16% of all votes cast in the 2016 presidential election, even as eight states have yet to report their totals and voters still have more than two weeks to cast. your votes.
Americans’ rush to vote is leading electoral experts to predict that a record 150 million votes can be cast and that turnout rates could be higher than in any presidential election since 1908.
“It’s crazy,” said Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida who has long tracked the vote on his ElectProject.org site. McDonald’s analysis shows that about 10 times more people have voted compared to this point in 2016.
“We can be confident that it will be a high turnout election,” McDonald said.
Some analysts view Donald Trump’s unwavering campaign against voting by mail as a risky strategy.
So far, turnout has been uneven, with Democrats outvoting Republicans by a 2-1 ratio in the 42 states included in The Associated Press count.
Republicans have been bracing for this early Democratic lead for months as they have seen President Donald Trump criticize mail ballots and raise unfounded concerns about fraud.
Polls, and now early voting, suggest that rhetoric has alienated his party’s rank and file from a voting method that they traditionally dominated in the weeks leading up to Election Day.
That gives the Democrats a tactical advantage down the stretch of the campaign. In many critical battlefield states, Democrats have “amassed” a proportion of their voters and can spend their time and money on rare and hard-to-find voters.
But it doesn’t necessarily mean that Democrats will lead the vote by the time the ballots are counted. Both parties anticipate a surge in Republican votes on Election Day that could, in a matter of hours, dramatically change the dynamics.
“The Republican numbers are going to increase,” said John Couvillon, a Republican pollster who is following early voting. “The question is how fast and when?”
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, seen here campaigning in Michigan on Friday, enjoys a healthy lead over Donald Trump in the polls.
Couvillon said Democrats cannot rest on their leadership in the vote, but Republicans are making a big bet.
Several factors, from the rise in virus infections to the weather, can affect in-person participation on Election Day.
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“If you’re putting all your faith in a voting day, it’s a very high risk,” Couvillon said.
That is why, despite Trump’s rhetoric, his campaign and his party are encouraging their own voters to cast their votes by mail or early and in person.
The campaign, which has been sending volunteers and staff to the field for months despite the pandemic, heralds a surge in voter registration in key states like Florida and Pennsylvania, a sharp change from the usual pattern as presidential elections loom. .
But it has had limited success in selling absentee voting. In key states, Republicans remain much less interested in voting by mail.
In Pennsylvania, more than three-quarters of the more than 437,000 ballots mailed so far have been from Democrats.
In Florida, half of all ballots mailed so far have been from Democrats and less than a third of them from Republicans. Even in Colorado, a state where every voter receives a ballot in the mail and Republicans generally dominate the first week of voting, only 19% of returned ballots have been Republicans.
“All of this is encouraging, but three weeks is a lifetime,” Democratic data strategist Tom Bonier said of early voting numbers.
“We may be in the middle of the first quarter and the Democrats have put a couple of points on the board.”
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