Early voting has begun in states across the country where voters are able to cast their ballots either in person or via mail. Some states provide details about the early votes that are cast, including partisan divisions and age of voters, as well as voting method. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has pushed for Democratic voters to utilize early voting more aggressively, seen as a tactic to help bank votes ahead of Election Day. While former President Donald Trump has been critical of early voting, his campaign and the Republican Party have also been pushing for voters to cast early ballots.
Republican voters have so far cast more early ballots than Democrats in three of the key swing states, giving the party a potential ray of optimism with less than five days before Election Day.
More registered Republicans have voted in Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina than Democrats, according to publicly available state data. The party affiliation doesn’t mean that voters have to vote for their party’s candidate, so there’s no way to definitively know whether the early voters supported the person that their party is aligned with.