image copyrightEPA
The US midterm elections, which will determine which party controls Congress for the next two years, are less than a week away. More than 43 million Americans have already taken part in early voting.
This is a shortened and adapted translation of material from a BBC correspondent. The original in English can be read here.
Every day, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida, four to five million people cast their ballots early—a significantly higher rate than in most previous elections.
As Professor Mike McDonald, who oversees the collection of this data, notes, the highest level of turnout (above average) is currently recorded in Texas. There is unusually high turnout among Hispanic voters. More than 5.8 million ballots have already been cast in Texas, up 1.75 million from 2022. Texas is the second most populous state in the United States and traditionally votes Republican, and has now become a key battleground in a battle that could determine which party wins control of the Senate for the remainder of Donald Trump's presidency.
Overall turnout appears likely to exceed 2020 and perhaps even 2018, which broke the 1914 record for midterm election voting.
Data from states where voters are required to indicate their party affiliation show an increase in Democratic votes, while Republican turnout in early voting remained roughly the same as 2022 levels.
In those states, as of Thursday, 44% of early ballots cast belong to Democratic Party supporters, 31.2% to Republican Party supporters and 24.7% to voters with no party affiliation.
McDonald also notes an increase in early voting among voters who do not identify themselves with any party, but the available data does not allow them to determine which candidates they cast their ballots for.
End of Most Popular
This extension will help if you have difficulties accessing the BBC Russian Service website.
Download extension
End of story Chrome browser extension - link
Three states—North Carolina, Georgia and Florida—require voters to indicate their race when registering. Data from these states show increases in Latino and Black voter turnout, while white voter turnout is on par with 2022 early voting rates.
“This is not surprising since racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to be in the Democratic Party coalition and white voters are more likely to be in the Republican Party coalition,” MacDonald said.
In Texas, voters don't indicate party or race affiliation, but some clues can be drawn: Data shows a sharp increase in turnout in a number of counties along the border with Mexico, where more than 90% of the population is Latino.
“If you look at these counties, some of them have early voting numbers alone that are already higher than the total turnout for all of 2022,” MacDonald said.
End of Subscribe to our social networks and newsletters
Early voting has grown in popularity in recent years, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic as more states began offering early voting options, including in person or by mail.
In the 2020 election, when voters chose the president and legislators, more than two-thirds of all votes were cast early. Half of those votes came by mail.
Voters are increasingly choosing to vote in person — even with early voting, McDonald said. They also began sending in their ballots earlier than in previous elections. There is no data indicating the exact reason for this, but MacDonald notes that mail-in ballots are more likely to be invalidated due to errors; In addition, some voters may be concerned about possible interference with the U.S. Postal Service.
In some places, authorities have already confirmed a record turnout. Minneapolis officials said Thursday that the city recorded a record number of early voters in a non-presidential election.
The early voting period will soon come to an end as states begin to close early voting days before the election itself on Tuesday, November 3.
Pope Leo XIV cast his vote in the midterm elections on Friday. Pontiff is still registered to vote in Will County, Illinois.
He submitted a ballot request on Oct. 3, Kim Fladhammer, chief of staff in the county clerk's office, told the Chicago Sun Times.
It later became known that the pope filled out a ballot and mailed it in, thus becoming the first sitting pontiff to take part in a secular political election.
Download the new BBC World Service app!
When you first open the app, select "BBC News Russian Service" and receive notifications about important news, analysis, videos and podcasts.
Important: The new app is not available in the UK and US.
Find out more
Video playlist
End Video playlist
