34M Americans had voted early by Oct. 27, UF data show

More than 34 million Americans had cast ballots early in the 2026 midterm elections as of the afternoon of Tuesday, Oct. 27, a week before Election Day on Nov. 3, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, as reported by States Newsroom.

That is close to the pace of the 2018 midterms, which had the highest midterm turnout since 1914. The lab counted nearly 46 million early ballots in the 2022 midterms.

Michael McDonald, the University of Florida political scientist who runs the lab, said the data point to a turnout at least as strong as 2018. “Right now, the data that I can see, it looks like we’re running at least even to the 2018 election. If the voting continues through Election Day, we would be somewhere around that number,” he said.

McDonald called 2018 “a high water benchmark,” according to the States Newsroom report.

A separate report from The National Desk, carried by ABC 33/40 on Oct. 26, cited the same lab for 30 million votes at that point and noted that national totals vary by tracker. It also cited an Associated Press analysis comparing early voting about two weeks before Election Day with the same point in 2022.

In that comparison, Texas was up about 74 per cent, Maine about 39 per cent and Ohio about 30 per cent, while Iowa was down about six per cent. Michigan was high but similar to its 2022 level, the report said.

The lab tracks party registration in 27 states that record it. Of roughly 16 million early voters in those states, about 45 per cent were registered Democrats, 31 per cent were registered Republicans and 24 per cent were unaffiliated, States Newsroom reported. Party registration does not show how a ballot was cast.

States Newsroom, citing the Cook Political Report, listed seven Senate toss-up races: Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Texas. The matchups it named include Josh Turek against Ashley Hinson in Iowa, Mike Rogers against Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Jon Husted against Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Ken Paxton against James Talarico in Texas. In Alaska, Mary Peltola is challenging Sen. Dan Sullivan.

Texas early voting ran from Oct. 19 to Oct. 30, ABC13 in Houston reported. The station also cited a Texas Southern University poll posted Oct. 29 that put Talarico at 49 per cent and Paxton at 47 per cent. We did not review that poll’s sample size or margin of error.

The States Newsroom report put state totals as of Oct. 26 or 27 at more than 1.3 million in Michigan, nearly 1.2 million in Ohio, more than five million in Texas, nearly 307,000 in Iowa, more than 245,000 in Kansas, more than 196,000 in Maine and more than 46,000 in Alaska, all attributed to the lab’s tracker.

For Canadian readers, the result matters because tariffs on Canadian goods have been part of the campaign. Our earlier reporting covered how tariffs have shaped the Michigan Senate race, the final pre-election polls on the president’s approval and the Supreme Court rulings that set voting rules a week before the vote.

Voting continues in many states through Nov. 3, and early totals include ballots from people who might otherwise have voted on Election Day, so they do not by themselves predict the final turnout.

Via States Newsroom, The National Desk and ABC13. Early-vote totals are as reported on the dates given and will change.

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