Voter turnout in this year’s presidential election is expected to be close to the record high set in 2020, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the Associated Press and the University of Florida Election Lab.
Votes are still being counted in some states, but those tabulated so far and expected totals show a range of turnout across states.
Records set since 1980 are expected to be surpassed in 10 states. (State-level data from earlier than 1980 was not available).
Maine, California, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maryland, New Hampshire and Georgia are all set to break the 44-year-record in their respective states, all breaching the 70% or higher barrier of votes cast.
Participation in Wisconsin was a percentage point higher than the high mark set in 2004, when 3 in 4 eligible voters cast their ballots. In Michigan and Arizona, turnout surpassed their 2020 numbers by two percentage points.
North Carolina was one of the few key states in this election where participation was lower. In 2020, 71% of eligible voters cast a ballot. In 2024, that number is expected to fall closer to 69%.
In multiple states, strong early voting, including mail and early in-person voting, set the stage for high overall turnout. Michigan saw more early voting this year than in 2020, when concerns about the coronavirus pandemic pushed many states to loosen requirements for mail voting. Many other states came very close to their 2020 early-voting totals. According to a graphic by the Washington Post, Michigan hit 3.3 million voters during their early in-person voting period for this year.
Georgia also surpassed previous early voting totals from the last two elections in 2020 and 2022, with the state just barely beating their 2020 total by hitting 4 million early voters.
Washington, Oregon and Minnesota are all expected to hit the 70% or higher threshold of votes cast in the 2024 election, but will not get high enough to break their state turnout records like the other ten states mentioned.
Arkansas’ voter turnout is on the lowest end of the tracked data, with the forecast votes cast seeming to be near 50% or lower according to analyzed data. This puts them near Oklahoma and Mississippi as some of the states with the lowest number of votes cast by the eligibile residents.
When comparing the number of expected votes as a share of the voting-eligibile population across the United States, the Washington Post shows the amount slightly dropping to 65%.
While turnout in this election won’t surpass the record reached in 2020, it will be the second-highest in the past century, above other modern high marks, including in 2008, when Barack Obama defeated John McCain; 1960, when John F. Kennedy defeated Richard M. Nixon; and 1908, when William Howard Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan.
Turnout rates were calculated by dividing the number of votes for the presidency by the voting-eligible population. The 2024 vote count is from the Associated Press in states where more than 97% of the expected vote has been counted as of press time. In states where less than 97% of the vote has been counted, expected vote totals, also provided by the Associated Press, were used. Certified 2020 vote counts are from Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Voting-eligible population and vote counts from previous years are from the University of Florida Election Lab.
This post was originally published on here
