Georgia saw record-high early voting numbers. Here’s what that means for the election : NPR

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Over 10 million ballots have already been cast in the 2024 election, two and a half weeks before what we still call Election Day. Early voting is underway in many states, and in one of the biggest swing states, the rush to the polls has been big.

SIMON: (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DAVID MUIR: A record-breaking first day of voting in the battleground of Georgia today.

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UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST: More than 305,000 people cast their ballot Tuesday, more than two times the number in the past two election cycles.

SIMON: Michael McDonald joins us. He’s a professor of political science at the University of Florida who specializes in American elections. He joins us from Gainesville. Thanks so much for being with us.

MICHAEL MCDONALD: Wonderful to be with you.

SIMON: Has there been a growth in early voting?

MCDONALD: Oh, yeah. I mean, over a million people have already voted in Georgia. We’re seeing big numbers elsewhere as well. They’re not as big as they were in 2020 because the pandemic was a very unusual election, and we had record numbers of people who were casting mail ballots. But if we look at the longer trend line, yes, these are numbers that look increasingly over from election to election, setting aside that 2020 election.

SIMON: And what do you think we can learn or infer from this turnout?

MCDONALD: Well, from the vote-by-mail states, we’re going to know something about the turnout overall in the country. In 2020, I could see that we were surpassing the total vote cast in 2016 in the early vote alone the week before the election. And indeed, in 2020, the turnout rate was the highest that we had seen since 1900. So we’re looking fairly robust right now in terms of participation. At the moment, I’m shading our turnout more towards the 2020 record turnout than, say, the 2016, which was still very high.

SIMON: What do you caution people we shouldn’t infer or assume from all the early voting?

MCDONALD: Well, we’re already seeing, as we normally see, that the Democrats are voting early. We expect that to happen because Democrats prefer to vote early. And the Democrats have to build up a seawall. And then, on Election Day, we see that red wave come in. And then the question is, will that seawall that the Democrats have built, is that going to be enough to withstand the red wave that’s going to happen on Election Day? So just because the Democrats are leading at this moment, that’s not to say that Harris is going to win the presidency. We still have a long ways to go, and, of course, we need to see Election Day.

SIMON: Why the assumption that it’s the Democrats who are voting early?

MCDONALD: I’ve followed this since 2008, and every year, we see more Democrats vote early than Republicans. In fact, I mean, if you’re in a state and you don’t see that pattern, it’s almost a sure indication that the Republicans are going to win whatever state offices there are for that election cycle. Why is it? It’s a good question. In more recent years, of course, we’ve had President Trump disparage early voting in its various forms, and his supporters have listened to him. This time around, he has softened his language on early voting. And it – actually, it looks like it’s happening in the data. We can see more Republicans than we have in typical past elections voting early. You know, maybe this advantage that the Democrats have had since 2008, maybe it won’t be as significant as – this year as we’ve seen in the past. But again, we still have a long ways to go.

SIMON: What are you watching for at this point in the election as we get reports about mail-in voting?

MCDONALD: Again, we expect the Democrats to do well and pile up early votes. So that’s what’s happening. That’s the expected thing. What I’m seeing at the moment is that not only are there more Democrats voting; they’re also returning those mail ballots at a higher rate than the Republicans who have requested those mail ballots. So it looks like there’s some level of enthusiasm that’s lurking inside these numbers. Republicans tend, at least in the past, to have voted later in the cycle, so we’ll have to see if this persists. But right now, that’s the most interesting thing to me of what’s going on.

SIMON: I have to ask, Professor McDonald, do you ever tell people, well, why don’t we wait until we count the ballots?

MCDONALD: I do say that. I mean, I’ve been trying to say that. I mean, we know that the Democrats are going to build up a lead in the early vote if typical past patterns occur, and then we’re going to see what happens on Election Day. So, yes, I firmly believe that we need to wait till everyone has voted to actually know what the outcome’s going to be.

SIMON: Michael McDonald is a political science professor at the University of Florida. Thank you so much for being with us.

MCDONALD: Great to be with you.

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