The Harris and Trump campaigns have conflicting approaches to early voting applications

With just five days until Election Day, more than 68 million Americans have already cast their ballots, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab. But what this data portends about the outcome of next week’s election depends largely on who you ask.

Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump’s campaigns are entering election week, which makes us optimistic about their chances.

“We’re really pleased with what we’re seeing,” a senior Harris campaign official said Thursday. “We are very focused on ensuring that our entire organization does everything we can to make sure our votes are confirmed.”

“President Trump continues to dominate in poll after poll, Republicans have seen tremendous increases in voter registration, and we are significantly outperforming our early voting share compared to two or four years ago in every battleground state” – Karoline, national press secretary Trump campaign, Leavitt said in a statement to Scripps News. “Voters know Kamala Harris destroyed our country, but President Trump will fix it — and that’s why he is well-positioned to win on November 5.”

But experts on both sides of the aisle say the race remains extremely close, but Harris heads into Election Day in a strong position.

This may seem inconsistent with initial conclusions from early voting data; in several battleground states, more Republicans appear to have voted early than Democrats, and Republicans are voting early with significantly more votes than in 2020.

For example, as of Friday evening, more than 290,000 registered Republicans had voted in Nevada so far, while only about 253,000 registered Democrats had cast ballots, according to polling firm TargetSmart. Meanwhile, about 13,000 more registered Democrats voted in 2020 than Republicans.

Similar trends are evident in early voting data in North Carolina and Georgia, although the latter do not require voters to provide party affiliation when registering, so estimating their ideology requires more guesswork.

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Nevertheless, the data may not be as bad for Democrats as it seems. TargetSmart’s analysis found that a significant portion of Republicans who voted early likely voted on Election Day in 2020, meaning Republicans may not be gaining new voters so much as changing their votes early.

“Approximately 94% of all Republicans who have voted in Pennsylvania so far voted in 2020.” said Tom Bonier, senior adviser to TargetSmart and longtime Democratic strategist. Republicans aren’t “manufacturing new votes,” Bonier added, but rather “they’re just shifting people who voted anyway on Election Day and getting them out early.

The data reflects what the Harris campaign also sees internally, according to senior campaign advisers. In Nevada, nearly three times as many Republican voters as Democratic voters cast ballots early on Election Day, officials say, citing what Scripps News described as “modeling relies on voter file data and high-quality monitoring surveys.” In Georgia, twice as many Republicans who had already voted waited until the last day of the election.

“They are simply changing the way they vote,” said a senior Harris campaign official. “They are shifting from Election Day voters to early voting instead of attracting new voters.”

Even some Republicans have acknowledged that comparing 2024 voter trends to the 2020 presidential races may not be as fruitful, given that the last election was held during a historic pandemic and voter preferences have likely changed since then.

The last presidential election was during Covid-19 and we were in the middle of a pretty wholesale shift in how people voted and when they voted,” a Republican strategist told Scripps News. “I just don’t think it necessarily tells a decisive story, given the number of early votes that a lot of people are trying to draw conclusions from.”

Overall, the total number of early voters who have cast ballots so far is down compared to 2020 numbers – which was expected given the easing of pandemic restrictions. “Compared to four years ago, the number of early votes in each group is decreasing,” Bonier said. “It’s just a question of which groups fell more.”

There are certainly some positive trends to be seen in the Trump campaign. In Arizona, for example, registration and turnout are particularly high among white men, a group expected to support Trump significantly.

Trump’s campaign was quick to highlight the slim lead the former president maintains in recent swing polls, with campaign pollster Tony Fabrizo noting in a memo that public polling averages put Trump in a much better position today than he has been in four years. years ago.

But there are other positive signs for Harris as well. Battleground voters who made their decision last week favor Harris “by a double-digit margin,” a senior campaign adviser said Friday. Similarly, there is evidence that women voters – another group expected to support Harris more than Trump – are more likely than men to show up on key battlegrounds.

Overall, experts agreed that the race is historically close.

“I have never seen a race that went so long and in which so much happened that, at least according to the polls, it could really be considered a one-on-one race,” the Republican strategist said.

As with all elections, victory will ultimately be determined by how many voters show up on Election Day and how well campaigns are able to mobilize their supporters. Harris’ campaign has made significant investments in its so-called ground game operation, while Trump’s team has largely outsourced those efforts to Elon Musk and other outside groups.

“Nobody has any idea how this is going to play out,” the Republican strategist noted. “It may or may not go amazingly. We just don’t know and won’t know until this is over.

Scripps News reporter Haley Bull contributed to this report.