Texas Leads Midterm Early Vote Surge

Early voting has outpaced the 2022 midterm election by millions of ballots, with the sharpest increases occurring in states where voters will choose the next U.S. Senators. As of Wednesday, five days before Election Day, more than 43 million Americans had voted in person or returned mail ballots. That figure is nearly 10 million higher than the total recorded at the same point in the previous midterm cycle.

Texas accounts for a large portion of that growth. Over 6.3 million Texans cast ballots early, a 50% increase from the 4.2 million who did so four years ago. The state is deciding the governorship and a closely watched Senate seat. Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton faces Democrat James Talarico in the Senate race, while Governor Greg Abbott seeks reelection against Democrat Gina Hinojosa. Trump visited Texas earlier this week for the third time in a month as candidates poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the contest.

Harris County, which includes Houston, saw a specific jump in participation. As of Wednesday, 862,700 residents had voted, compared with 564,500 at the same point in 2022. The county has leaned Democratic in recent years. In 2024, Kamala Harris won the presidential vote there by nearly six percentage points, and Democrat Colin Allred defeated Ted Cruz for Senate by roughly 11 percentage points. This year's Senate race pits Paxton against Talarico in a county that remains a key battleground despite its recent Democratic tilt.

Other Senate battlegrounds are also seeing double-digit increases in early turnout. In South Carolina, voters will choose a successor to the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. Early voting there is up 83% compared to the same point in 2022. The state also has open races for governor. Kansas, where Republican Sen. Roger Marshall faces Democratic pastor Adam Hamilton, reported a 34% increase. That represents roughly 83,000 more ballots cast than four years ago.

Maine and Michigan show similar patterns of higher advance voting. In Maine, Republican Sen. Susan Collins faces Democrat Troy Jackson. Early voting is up 44% from the 2022 baseline. Michigan recorded roughly 409,000 more early votes than in 2022, a 32% increase. This is the first midterm election where early in-person voting is available statewide in Michigan, after voters approved the measure in November 2022.

The data comes from an Associated Press analysis covering 47 states and Washington, D.C. Four years ago, the data covered 48 states and the capital. In states that track party affiliation, about 6.8 million Democrats and 5.2 million Republicans have voted early. These figures do not account for all early voters nationwide or indicate which candidates received the votes. The turnout occurs as voters prepare to decide control of Congress two years into President Donald Trump’s second term. Republicans currently hold the majority in both the House and the Senate, with a 53-47 split in the upper chamber.

The expansion of early voting access in certain states has contributed to the higher totals. The increase in participation is most visible in the states where the Senate map has expanded, giving Democrats opportunities to challenge Republican holdouts. The data reflects a shift in how Americans engage with the electoral process ahead of the November election.