According to CNN, Republicans are outpacing Democrats in early voting in multiple crucial swing states in the 2024 election.

With eight days before Election Day, approximately 43 million Americans have already cast their ballot.

Democrats held a big advantage in early voting in the 2020 presidential election.

However, Republicans are looking to close the gap in 2024.

CNN analyzed early voting by party registration in Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

Registered Republicans have outperformed Democrats in early voting in three of those states.

In Arizona, Republicans outpace Democrats 43 to 35 percent.

Republicans have a 34 to 33 percent lead in North Carolina.

Meanwhile, Republicans have a 39 to 35 percent lead in Nevada.

Democrats lead in Pennsylvania by a 59 to 30 percent tally.

A closer look:

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Per CNN:

Democrats held a wide advantage over Republicans in early voting four years ago, but the gap could be narrower this time as top Republican officials urge supporters to embrace voting before Election Day on November 5.

Voters register by party in four of the seven president battlegrounds and in each of those four, Democrats have cast a smaller share of pre-election ballots this year than at this point in 2020. Registration data by party is not available for the battleground states of Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The overall downtick in interest in early voting so far shouldn’t be surprising.

The 2020 election featured historic levels of pre-election voting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some voters were wary to vote in-person with guidelines from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention recommending social distancing. Four years later, with the country out of the pandemic, more voters could be heading back to the ballot box for in-person voting either before or on Election Day.

According to POLITICO, Democrats are hopeful in Michigan and Republicans are optimistic about Nevada.

From POLITICO:

Democrats have found positive signs out of Michigan, where more than 145,000 voters cast ballots on Saturday, the first day of in-person early voting statewide. Michigan is also among the states where comparing the early vote to past cycles is perhaps the most futile; the state does not have party registration, and this is the first general election being conducted under a new voter-approved ballot measure expanding early voting access.

Nonetheless, Democrats are encouraged by the high return races for absentee ballots so far, particularly among voters they see as more likely to support Democratic candidates. Statewide, a bit over 60 percent of absentee ballots that have been requested have already been returned, and the share is higher in heavily Democratic strongholds such as Detroit, where nearly two-thirds percent of absentee ballots have been returned, a POLITICO analysis found. Moreover, Democratic modeling shared with POLITICO showed older black voters having the highest rate of return of any demographic group, with 77 percent of absentee ballots returned already — a sign of strength with the party’s base.

Republicans, meanwhile, seem to have ground to make up in Michigan. But there is still time for that, with more than a week of early in-person voting — the method that has favored the GOP in other states — until the election.

On the flip side, Republicans have been enthused about early returns in Nevada — so much so that the Mitch McConnell-linked Senate Leadership Fund jumped in with $6 million last week to boost GOP Senate nominee Sam Brown, on the hopes that his challenge to Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen might be closer than it has seemed in public polling.

The GOP have gotten off to a hot start in Nevada, with nearly 31,000 more registered Republicans having cast ballots in the state than Democrats so far, according to data from the Nevada Secretary of State’s office.

 

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