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

NPR’s Scott Simon speaks with University of Florida professor Michael McDonald about this election cycle’s high early voting turnout.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

More than 10 million votes have already been cast in the 2024 election, with only two and a half weeks before what is called Election Day. Early voting is underway in many states, and one of the biggest battleground states is seeing a huge rush to polling places.

SIMON: (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DAVID MUIR: Today was a record first day of voting in the battleground state of Georgia.

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UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST: More than 305,000 people voted on Tuesday. That’s more than double the number from the past two election cycles.

SIMON: Michael McDonald joins us. He is a professor of political science at the University of Florida, specializing in American elections. He joins us from Gainesville. Thank you very much for joining us.

Michael McDonald: It’s great to be with you.

SIMON: Has early voting increased?

McDonald: Oh, yeah. That means over 1 million people have already voted in Georgia. Large numbers are also seen elsewhere. The election was not as big as it was in 2020 because the pandemic was a very unusual election, and a record number of people voted by mail. But if you look at the longer trend line, certainly these are numbers that we see more and more every election, 2020 election aside.

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

MACDONALD: Well, the states that have mail-in voting can tell you something about turnout across the country. In 2020, early voting in the week before the election alone exceeded the total number of votes cast in 2016. And in fact, voter turnout in 2020 was the highest since 1900. So participation looks pretty solid at the moment. At this point, we are adjusting turnout for record turnout in 2020, rather than in 2016, which was still very high.

SIMON: Do you warn people not to extrapolate or make assumptions from early voting results?

MACDONALD: Well, as usual, we already know that Democrats are voting early. Democrats prefer early voting, so we expect that to happen. And Democrats must build seawalls. And on Election Day, you’ll see a wave of red rolling in. So the question is: Will the seawalls built by Democrats be strong enough to withstand the red wave likely to occur on Election Day? Therefore, just because the Democratic Party is currently in the lead does not mean that Harris will win the presidency. We still have a long way to go, and of course we have to get to Election Day.

SIMON: Why is there this assumption that Democrats are the ones voting early?

McDonald: I’ve been watching this since 2008, and every year more Democrats vote early than Republicans. In fact, if you’re in a state and you don’t see that pattern, it means that Republicans are almost certain to win any state office during that election cycle. Why is that? Good question. Of course, in recent years President Trump has disparaged early voting in various ways, and his supporters have listened to him. This time, he softened his words on early voting. And that actually seems to be happening within the data. More Republicans are expected to vote early than in past regular elections. Perhaps this advantage that Democrats have had since 2008 may not be as significant this year as it has been in the past. But again, we still have a long way to go.

SIMON: There’s been a lot of press coverage about mail-in voting, but what are you looking at at this point in the election?

MacDonald: Again, I’m hopeful that Democrats will put up a good fight and build up early voting. That’s what’s happening. That’s expected. What I’m seeing right now is not just that more people are voting Democratic. They are also returning mail-in ballots at a higher rate than Republicans who requested them. So there appears to be some enthusiasm lurking within these numbers. Republicans, at least in the past, tend to vote later in election cycles, so we’ll have to see if this continues. But what’s happening now is what’s most interesting to me.

SIMON: Professor McDonald, I want to ask you, have you ever said to people, “Why don’t we wait until we count the ballots?”

McDonald: I certainly think so. I mean, that’s what I was trying to say. So if the typical patterns of the past occur, we know that Democrats will build up a lead in early voting, and then we’ll see what happens on Election Day. So I strongly believe that we need to wait until everyone has voted to actually know what the outcome will be.

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

McDonald: It’s a pleasure to be with you.

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