States with the most pre-election votes cast so far

More than 34.6 million pre-election ballots have been cast in 47 states, according to data from Elections officials, Edison Research and Catalist.

Pre-election voting has been ahead of the 2018 pace across the states where data is available for the last three cycles. However, it’s still too early to know if overall turnout will reach 2018 levels, as voting patterns may have changed in the last few years. 

Today is the last day of in-person early voting in Texas, and the state continues to have the largest number of pre-election votes cast, with more than 4.6 million. 

There have been more than 3.8 million votes in Florida. In California, where every voter receives a ballot in the mail, more than 3.4 million pre-election ballots have been cast.  

Among some of the key battleground states, there have been more than 2.2 million ballots cast in Georgia, more than 1.2 million in Michigan and Arizona, and pre-election voting in Pennsylvania has crossed 1 million. 

In Wisconsin, 590,000 people have voted, while more than 460,000 votes have been cast in the smaller battleground state of Nevada.  

Some voter data comes from Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue-advocacy organizations and is giving insights into who is voting before November.

Listen to the CNN Political Briefing podcast for analysis of the political landscape heading into the 2022 midterms.

The youngest voters – those aged 18-21 years – are showing up in higher numbers in all six key states compared to this point during the 2018 general election.

The number of these youngest voters in Michigan has risen from fewer than 500 in 2018 — before absentee voting was available to all in the state — to more than 21,000 so far this year. In every state except Wisconsin, 18-21-year-old voters are roughly the same or a larger share of the electorate than even this time during the 2020 election.

One major contributing factor to higher early turnout among young voters, especially in Michigan and Pennsylvania, is that no-excuse voting by mail was introduced there in 2020.

“It’s often the case that when you make voting easier, young people turn out more,” said Charlotte Hill, the director of the Democracy Policy Initiative at UC-Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. “That’s because many steps of the voting process are disproportionately difficult for young people. When you make those steps easier, everyone benefits, but especially those people who had a harder time in the first place.”

However, 18-21-year-old voters are still no more than 2% of the early vote in these key states.

Traditionally, voters 65 and older make up a disproportionate share of a state’s voters, Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University, told CNN. This year is no exception. More than half of the early voters in every state so far — except Georgia and Nevada — are senior citizens.

While there are fewer older voters who have voted early in each state than at this point in the last two elections, seniors are still a larger share of the early voting electorate than in 2020.

In key states with available data – Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania – a slightly higher share of Democrats are turning out at this early stage in the general election than not only 2018, but 2020 as well. That includes Arizona and Nevada, where Republican pre-election voters outnumbered Democrats at this point in 2018.

Independent voters are also turning out early in Arizona and Nevada, where more than a quarter of all pre-election voters under 40 years old are independents. For Nevadans aged 18-21 years, the difference between Democrats and independents is roughly 7 percentage points.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul accused her Republican challenger Lee Zeldin of dishonesty about crime, misleading on his abortion position and being a right-wing extremist in a Friday interview with “CNN This Morning.”

Hochul, the incumbent Democrat, is stuck in an uncomfortably competitive race with Zeldin – who would be the first Republican elected statewide since 2002 – as concerns rise over the economy and crime. The first woman governor of New York, Hochul downplayed recent polling showing a tightening of the race and said she was confident her campaign was building momentum ahead of Election Day. 

She expressed pointed criticism of his vote against certifying the 2020 presidential election.

When she was asked why Republicans have had so much success hammering Democrats on crime, Hochul said her opponent was simply fear-mongering.

“Because they’re being dishonest about it. They’re not having a conversation about real solutions,” Hochul said, before talking about Zeldin’s vote in Congress against a bipartisan gun law. “Let’s talk about real answers and not just give everyone all these platitudes.”

She also called Zeldin’s pledge to repeal the state’s bail reform law with an executive order a sign of his “naiveté.” Hochul also noted that there is no clear data connecting the controversial criminal justice reform law with a spike in crime. 

But Hochul quickly pivoted from there, acknowledging voters’ concerns.

On abortion, Hochul pushed back on Zeldin’s assurances that nothing will change for women in New York, with its robust abortion rights laws, if he’s elected.

“He wants to say that nothing’s changed since the Dobbs decision in New York. That’s because I’m the governor and he’s not,” Hochul said. “There are many ways that he could subvert women’s right to choose if he becomes governor.”

Zeldin previously said he would pick a “pro-life” health commissioner, but later walked back the comment.

More than 30 million people have already voted in 46 states, according to data from election officials, Edison Research and Catalist.

Early voting is up since the 2018 midterms across the country and in four of the six key states to watch for the 2022 midterms.

Mail-in voting was less common in 2018 and pre-election votes are still below the 2020 presidential election. Presidential elections typically see larger turnout and many states expanded early and mail-in voting for the Covid-19 pandemic.

Voters in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan have already cast more than 1 million ballots each. Nearly 2 million have voted early in Georgia, a 29% jump compared to this point in 2018.

Pre-election voters so far are generally slightly younger, more Democratic and diverse than they were in 2018, but not as much as they were in 2020.

Top aides to former President Donald Trump have been eyeing the third week of November as an ideal launch point for his 2024 presidential campaign, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

One of those sources said Trump’s team has specifically discussed Monday, Nov. 14 as an announcement date, which would come less than a week after the midterm elections and just days after the former President’s youngest daughter Tiffany is due to be married at his Mar-a-Lago estate. This person cautioned that no date has been locked in and Trump could move up his desired announcement date – or push it back – depending on how Republicans fare in the elections next Tuesday and the availability of venues.

Trump has been advised by several of his key lieutenants to announce his third presidential campaign from one of the battleground states he narrowly lost to Joe Biden in 2020, according to a person familiar with the conversations, though others have encouraged him to remain in Florida for the launch where he remains deeply popular among the state’s Republican voters. A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

More background: The former president has long been eyeing the post-midterm period before Thanksgiving as an ideal announcement timeline for his next political act, hoping to capitalize on what he and allies believe will be a red wave for the GOP next Tuesday. At a rally Thursday in Iowa, Trump told the audience to “get ready” for his return to the presidential campaign trail, noting that he “very, very, very probably will probably do it again,” in reference to running for the White House.

News of Trump’s potential Nov. 14 announcement was first reported by Axios.

The US economy added 261,000 jobs in October and the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.7%, according to the latest monthly employment snapshot from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released Friday morning. The number is just the “Goldilocks” outcome that the White House was hoping for — not too low, but not too high.

The total job gains were lower than the revised September number of 315,000, and above the 200,000 forecast from economists surveyed by Refinitiv.

President Joe Biden and his economic team have known for months that a cooling of the economy is a necessity to crack the pervasive price increases that have handed a significant advantage to Republicans on the issue, which voters consistently cite as most important.

At its heart is Biden’s most significant economic success: A dramatic jobs recovery from the pandemic-driven economic crisis he walked into on his first day in office. More than 10 million jobs have been added since Biden’s inauguration and the unemployment rate sits at 3.5%.

The tight labor market, however, has exacerbated the soaring price increases that have imperiled Democrats’ hold on their majorities in the House and Senate.

It’s the political paradox that looms over the last major piece of economic data before Election Day – one that comes at a moment that finds Democrats desperately trying to make up ground on the economy.

North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Cheri Beasley continued to distance herself from the “defund the police” movement popular with progressives in the party.

When asked by Don Lemon on “CNN This Morning” about police groups supporting her GOP opponent Ted Budd and if messaging over “defunding the police” has hurt her campaign, here’s how she responded:

Constituents know her record after she’s served as an elected official for over a decade, she said.

“I mean, folks are going to say what they’re gonna say, because they’re working so hard in this race. Ted Budd is so worried about attacking my own record because he can’t defend his own,” she said.

More context: Budd’s campaign and allies have aggressively gone after Beasley, accusing her of turning dangerous criminals loose while on the bench, including saying that she “struck down” a law to require GPS tracking for sex offenders. Beasley and other judges call that charge “deceitful” since the ruling was to limit the scope of the law and not strike it down.

Watch here:

###

The heavy hitters of American politics are hitting the campaign trail to deliver some closing arguments about the importance of next Tuesday’s election.

But their messages might not be sinking in.

It’s about democracy writ large

President Joe Biden told donors in Florida this week that “democracy is on the ballot.”

Later, in a speech from Washington, DC, he warned about political violence across the country.

But in a nod to the realities of his own political toxicity, Biden has largely avoided events to whip up voters in states with key races.

It’s about democracy in individual states

In Arizona, former President Barack Obama, who is extremely popular and a real draw for Democrats, told a rally that if a slate of Republican election deniers there wins next week, “Democracy as we know it may not survive in Arizona.”

He added: “That’s not an exaggeration. That is a fact.”

Candidates for secretary of state in Arizona and Nevada, in particular, have promised to upend the election systems there to guard against widespread voter fraud, for which there is no evidence.

It’s about 2024

Former President Donald Trump will kick off his closing blitz of rallies starting in Iowa, which is not the site of the most hotly contested Senate race but is home to the first presidential preference contest in the coming 2024 primaries.

At an earlier rally in Texas, Trump framed the election as an opportunity for the “MAGA movement” to take back the country from Democrats.

CNN’s Gabby Orr and Jeff Zeleny have an excellent look at where Trump is going, who he is appearing with and what it may mean. Note: Trump is not campaigning with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, but he is campaigning in Florida.

Read the full analysis here.