Early in-person voting moved toward Democrats in four states

Registered Republicans led Florida’s early in-person voters by R+23.7 at this stage in 2022. This year their lead is R+7.1. In Kansas, the in-person early vote has gone from R+14.9 to D+0.4.

The same movement shows up in Iowa and North Carolina, the other two states where we can separate mail and in-person early ballots by registered party.

Florida Democrats changed how they vote early

Florida voters’ mail-ballot requests expired at the start of 2025, under a state law that requires voters to renew them after each federal general election cycle.¹ Registered Democrats have since moved toward early-voting sites. They cast about 500,000 in-person early ballots by this point, up from about 255,000 in 2022. Their mail ballots fell from about 816,000 to about 603,000.

Mail’s shrinking share

Mail ballots make up a smaller share of the early vote in all four states. In Florida, the share fell from 69% to 51%; in Iowa, from 58% to 35%.

The overall early vote

Counting mail and in-person ballots together, early voters moved toward Democrats in Florida, Kansas and North Carolina. Iowa moved the other way, from D+23.3 to D+17.5, as Democrats’ lead among the state’s mail voters shrank sharply.

These counts include only ballots cast before Election Day.