WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Fewer Americans intend to vote ahead of Election Day this year than did so in 2020, but the rate is still higher than in election years before the COVID-19 pandemic spurred the broad adoption of early voting. Currently, more than half of registered voters (54%) say they have already voted or plan to vote before Election Day, down from 64% in 2020.
The latest results are based on an Oct. 14-27 Â鶹´«Ã½AV poll, which probed both when voters plan to vote and by what means.
During the poll’s field period, 20% of registered voters said they had already voted, with another 34% planning to do so before Election Day and 42% intending to vote on Election Day, Nov. 5. In a similarly timed poll in 2020, 36% had already voted by the time they were interviewed, 28% planned to vote before Election Day, and 32% were going to vote on Election Day.
Last month, 40% of registered voters expected to vote before Election Day, compared with 54% today. Â鶹´«Ã½AV has observed a similar pattern in recent elections, with an increasing number of early voters closer to Election Day than earlier in the campaign.
Democratic voters continue to be significantly more likely than Republican voters to cast early ballots. Currently, 63% of registered voters who are Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents have already voted or plan to vote before Election Day, compared with 47% of Republicans and Republican leaners. The 16-percentage-point Democratic-Republican gap is similar to what Â鶹´«Ã½AV measured in the 2020 election (74% for Democrats and 56% for Republicans). Before 2020, Republicans and Democrats were about equally likely to vote early.
More In-Person Voting on Tap in 2024 Than in 2020
The poll also reveals that, regardless of when people plan to vote this year, more will vote in person than did so in 2020 (67% vs. 60%, respectively). Correspondingly, fewer will vote by mail or absentee ballot than in 2020 (26% vs. 35%), when the election took place during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Democrats and Democratic leaners (35%) are twice as likely as Republicans and Republican leaners (17%) to be voting by absentee ballot. Both party groups show similar declines in absentee voting compared with 2020 -- an eight-point decline for Republicans and 10 points for Democrats.
Considering both when and how Americans plan to vote, the largest segment of voters, 39%, plan to vote in person on Election Day. The next largest groups are early voters who plan to vote in person (28%) or by mail or absentee ballot (25%). Two percent of U.S. registered voters will vote by absentee ballot on Election Day, and the remainder either are unsure when or how they will vote or don’t plan to vote at all.
Forty-six percent of Republicans and Republican leaners plan to vote in person on Election Day, compared with 33% of Democrats and Democratic leaners.
Republican versus Democratic early voters diverge in how they will vote. Republicans are about twice as likely to vote early in person (31%) as by mail or absentee ballot (15%), while more Democratic voters will vote early by mail (34%) than vote in person before Election Day (27%).
High Voter Enthusiasm
Seventy percent of registered voters say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting, similar to the 71% measured in August but higher than the 56% in March. The increase this summer was largely a result of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents expressing heightened enthusiasm after Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket, surging from 57% to 79% “more enthusiastic.”
Now, Democrats maintain elevated election enthusiasm, at 77%, compared with 67% among Republicans.
The overall level of voter enthusiasm is on the high end of what Â鶹´«Ã½AV has measured at the close of recent presidential election campaigns, along with the 2004 (67%), 2008 (68%) and 2020 (69%) elections.
Both Republicans’ and Democrats’ levels of enthusiasm are similar to what they were four years ago.
Since Â鶹´«Ã½AV first asked the question in 2000, the enthusiasm measure has shown a mixed relationship with presidential election outcomes. Democratic enthusiasm advantages in 2008 and 2020 preceded party wins, while a Republican advantage in 2012 came in a year their party lost. Republicans also had a lead in 2000, when George W. Bush won the election in the Electoral College. In other years, no party had an obvious advantage in enthusiasm.
Americans’ attention to the election is also relatively high, with 83% of registered voters and 77% of U.S. adults saying they have given “quite a lot of thought” to the election. Both figures are similar to what Â鶹´«Ã½AV has measured in the past four presidential election years. Republicans and Democrats are giving similar levels of thought to the election this year.
Harris Campaign Reaching More Voters
More registered voters say they have been contacted by Kamala Harris’ campaign (42%) than by Donald Trump’s campaign (35%). The question asks about contact by email, phone, in person, mail or some other way. When Â鶹´«Ã½AV asked the same question in the 2008 and 2012 election years, roughly one in three voters reported being contacted by the major-party campaigns, although Barack Obama’s 2008 figure was somewhat higher than that.
The majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 58%, say the Harris campaign has contacted them. That compares with 40% of Republicans and Republican leaners who say the Trump campaign has contacted them, which is on the low end of what Â鶹´«Ã½AV has measured in the past for supporters of the nominee’s party. However, the 25% of Republicans saying they have been contacted by Harris’ campaign and 31% of Democrats who have been contacted by Trump’s are fairly typical for contact from an opposing party’s campaign.
Implications
Millions of Americans have already performed their civic duty and voted in this year’s presidential election. Early voting opportunities have expanded in recent years, and the 2024 election could be the second in which more ballots are cast before Election Day than on it.
In an election environment that generally favors the Republican Party, the Harris campaign’s efforts to engage voters -- and Democrats’ greater enthusiasm about voting -- have helped the Democrats make this a competitive election.
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