Hello and welcome to the details of High US early voter turnout gives both sides hope as opinion polls show Harris, Trump running neck-and-neck and now with the details
Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Socks depicting Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump are displayed for sale in a gift shop in Washington, US, October 31, 2024. — Reuters pic
WASHINGTON, Nov 1 — More than 62 million US voters have already cast their ballots in the 2024 election, breaking records in some states and leading both sides to hope it gives them an edge — even as experts warn the data is difficult to interpret.
Opinion polls show Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump running neck-and-neck, including in the seven battleground states likely to decide the national vote.
Harris’s campaign has encouraged early voting, with her running mate Tim Walz, outgoing President Joe Biden and former president Barack Obama all having already cast their ballots.
Trump had earlier cast scepticism — without proof — over the fairness of early voting, but has since embraced it, encouraging his supporters to cast ballots whenever suits them.
As of Thursday, at least 62.7 million people had cast votes early, accounting for almost 40 per cent of the total vote count in 2020.
In Georgia, for example, more than 3.5 million people had voted, or 45 per cent of registered voters — a record, according to Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
He added that he expected up to 70 per cent of Georgians to vote early in this election.
The situation is similar in several other swing states.
Brad Hines, a 73-year-old police officer, lined up to cast his ballot in-person on the first day of early voting in Wisconsin.
“I wanted to get in and get my vote done and then let everybody else know that they should do the same thing,” he said, adding that it was an “important election” for the state of “democracy.”
Gender gap
“After 2020, states really strengthened and improved early voting processes,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor at Princeton University.
The high number of early votes helps campaigns focus their efforts as Election Day nears, said Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida who is closely monitoring early voting.
“Every one of these early voters is somebody that they scratch off their lists, and every voter they scratch off their lists, they don’t have to contact that person anymore,” he said on a podcast.
He warned, however, that it was difficult to make projections at this stage.
According to figures for six states compiled by his laboratory — Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia — women represent around 55 per cent of the early vote, compared with 45 per cent for men.
The Democratic Party will hope that gives their candidate an edge, with opinion polls showing Harris has a marked lead with women.
Republicans, however, say that surveys are showing an increasing number of their supporters voting early.
At a rally on Wednesday, Trump claimed “Republicans have set the highest record” for early voting.
“Voters are engaged on both sides of the aisle,” Georgia’s Raffensperger said on CNN on Thursday.
“What we just want to do is make sure we have a fair, honest and accurate process.” — AFP
These were the details of the news High US early voter turnout gives both sides hope as opinion polls show Harris, Trump running neck-and-neck for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Malay Mail and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.
