Record early voting passes 51 million in US midterms as Alaska probe intensifies and California ballot fight heads to Supreme Court
More than 51 million Americans have already voted in the midterm elections, a record for a midterm, as federal prosecutors step up an Alaska Senate investigation and the Trump administration signals it will take its California ballot fight to the Supreme Court.
More than 51 million Americans have already voted in the midterm elections, setting a new record for early voting in a midterm cycle, with three days still to go before polling day on Tuesday, 3 November. The figure, compiled by the University of Florida’s Election Lab, passed the entire early-voting total from the last midterms in 2022, when just under 46 million people voted before Election Day, and it continued to rise through Saturday.
The count stood at about 49.6 million on Friday evening, made up of roughly 22.9 million returned mail ballots and 26.8 million in-person votes, before passing 50 million and reaching 51.31 million by Saturday afternoon local time, according to Election Lab data reported by several outlets. Texas has become the clearest example of the surge, with more than seven million people already voting early there — about 1.5 million more than the state’s entire early-voting total in 2022 — followed by California with about 5.1 million and Florida with about 4.7 million.
In the states that record party registration, registered Democrats have so far outnumbered registered Republicans among early voters, by about 10.7 million to 7.8 million. That comparison comes with an important caveat: only 27 states track party registration in this way, so it does not give a complete national picture, and early-voting totals on their own do not predict the final result. A record early vote can simply mean that people who would have voted on Election Day are voting sooner, rather than that overall turnout will rise by the same amount.
The stakes on Tuesday are control of Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s second term. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are on the ballot, along with 35 Senate seats, and Republicans currently hold a 53–47 majority in the Senate. Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats, while holding all of their own, to take control of the chamber, and they are seeking to capture at least one chamber to curb the president’s legislative agenda.
The final weekend has been dominated by two legal fights over how votes are cast and counted. In Alaska, federal prosecutors are investigating whether aides to Democratic Senate challenger Mary Peltola helped recruit a retired schoolteacher, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., to run because his name is similar to that of the Republican incumbent, Senator Dan S. Sullivan. The closely contested race is seen as crucial to Democrats’ hopes of taking the Senate, and Alaska’s US Attorney, Michael Heyman, said at a press conference on Friday that a recent New York Times report on the alleged recruitment effort had driven a significant surge of law enforcement resources to Alaska.
The Justice Department has also pursued the Alaska dispute in civil court. It filed a revised lawsuit seeking to block Alaska from certifying its election result if the incumbent narrowly loses and the votes for the other Sullivan could change the outcome, and it has asked a judge to order state election officials to isolate and preserve ballots ranking Daniel J. Sullivan so that any alleged voter confusion can be investigated. Reports citing a person familiar with the matter say more than 40 subpoenas and document requests have been issued in the inquiry, and the department has sought to compel the Peltola campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to answer questions about the allegations.
The allegations have not been established in court, and those named in them deny them. Peltola’s campaign has said it had no involvement with either Sullivan campaign, Peltola herself has said she is not interested in tricking voters, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has denied involvement. Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. has denied that his aim is to cause confusion or divert votes, and Reuters has said it was unable to independently verify the Times report. The Alaska Supreme Court has previously ruled that both Sullivans can appear on the ballot, with the incumbent listed with his party affiliation and incumbent status and the challenger listed without a party affiliation, and Alaska’s Republican governor, Mike Dunleavy, has separately ordered a state investigation into the alleged recruitment effort.
In California, the administration suffered a setback this week when a federal appeals court ruled 2–1 that the Justice Department had failed to justify its emergency bid to force the state to set aside mail ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters it alleges are likely noncitizens. The administration has said it will likely take that fight to the Supreme Court, adding a second front to the legal arguments over ballots that are already being cast and counted ahead of Tuesday.
Both parties spent Saturday making their final appeals to voters, with Trump spending the day at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida after a campaign blitz across multiple states over the past month, during which he held 25 rallies in October. The campaign has unfolded against a backdrop of public anger over the cost of living and the war involving Iran, which polls suggest are weighing on the president’s standing, even as Republicans argue that voters will reward them for holding both chambers.
National polling points to a difficult final stretch for the president’s party, though polls are not votes. A new Emerson College survey put Trump’s approval rating at 37 percent, its lowest figure for him in that organisation’s surveys, down two points from its previous low of 39 percent, while the same survey found Democrats leading Republicans by 10 percentage points on the generic congressional ballot. Polling averages cited in coverage put Democrats ahead by about eight points, at 51.4 percent to 43.2 percent, but with several Senate races still closely contested, the outcome in individual states will decide control.
What happens next is now largely in voters’ hands, with the remaining days before Tuesday likely to be shaped by court filings as much as campaign rallies. If the Alaska race is close, the Justice Department’s bid to isolate ballots and block certification could produce a prolonged fight over the result, while a Supreme Court move in the California case would test how far federal courts will go in intervening in a state’s handling of mail ballots. Either way, the record early vote already guarantees that this midterm will be remembered for how many Americans voted before Election Day itself.
More in USA
USAJudge dismisses Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against Wall Street Journal over Epstein birthday letter
USAWashington DC and Virginia sue to block Trump’s triumphal arch, calling it “flagrantly unlawful”
USA