More than 51 million Americans have already cast ballots in the midterm elections, passing the comparable early voting total from the last midterms and setting a new record for advance voting before a Tuesday poll. The figure, compiled by researchers tracking early voting and reported as the campaign entered its final weekend, covers ballots cast in person and by post across the country.
The record early voting pace has already passed the comparable figure from 2022, when nearly 46 million people had voted before Election Day, according to the same tracking. Midterm turnout is normally lower than in presidential years, and early voting has grown as more states expanded in person and postal options.
For campaigns, the surge changes the shape of the final weekend. Millions of voters have already made their choice, so the remaining contest is over a smaller pool of people who have not yet voted, together with efforts to make sure that postal ballots already sent are returned in time.
A record pace, with limits on what it shows
A large early total does not, on its own, predict the result. Early voters are not a representative sample of the whole electorate, and the mix changes from year to year as voting rules, weather, campaign spending and enthusiasm shift. Analysts quoted in weekend reporting cautioned against reading a winner from the early figures, noting that Election Day voting can still move close races in either direction.
Some early reporting has described the party breakdown of ballots already cast, but those breakdowns are incomplete. Not every state records a voter’s party when a ballot is returned, and in several states the figures describe registered party rather than a confirmed vote choice. The safest reading of the record is therefore about participation, not about outcome: more Americans chose to vote early this cycle than in the last midterms.
What Tuesday will decide
When polls close on Tuesday, voters will have decided 35 Senate races and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives. Republicans currently hold a 53 to 47 majority in the Senate and a narrow edge in the House, so the results will determine whether they keep control of Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term.
President Trump is scheduled to return to the campaign trail on Sunday with stops in Kansas and Iowa, after spending Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, according to reports. His closing message, like those of Democratic candidates, is aimed at the voters who have not yet cast a ballot, in races where a small number of votes could decide control of a chamber. With a record already set before Tuesday, the final question is how many more voters join them.
