More than 43 million Americans had already voted in the 2026 midterm elections with less than a week to go until Election Day, according to data from the University of Florida’s Election Lab reported on Thursday, October 29. The surge puts early voting on a pace well ahead of most previous midterm elections — and makes Texas, with more than 5.8 million ballots already cast, the state to watch.
The midterms, on Tuesday, November 3, will decide which party controls Congress for the next two years. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are contested, along with 35 of the Senate’s 100 seats, plus state-level offices including several closely watched governorships. Republicans currently control both chambers, but their House majority is extremely narrow: Democrats need a net gain of three seats to take the House, and four to take the Senate.
Early voting has become a much larger part of American elections since the COVID-19 pandemic, with more states offering in-person early voting or voting by mail. The Election Lab figures, compiled from official state data, show four to five million early votes being cast each day in the final stretch — a rate the Lab describes as much higher than in most previous elections.
A count that keeps climbing
The 43-million figure is a snapshot in a fast-moving count, and readers should understand how it was reached. By Wednesday night, the Election Lab total stood at 40.5 million — already past the roughly 39.1 million Americans who voted early in all of 2018 and the 40.1 million banked by the final weekend of 2022. By Thursday, with another day of voting counted, the total had passed 43 million. The difference between the Wednesday-night and Thursday figures is new ballots, not a contradiction: at four to five million votes a day, the national total rises by millions overnight.
That pace has also put the 2026 midterms among the three most-searched midterm elections in Google Trends history, according to a Trends report on voter questions ahead of the election, with Senate races, voter registration and voting boundaries among the topics drawing the most searches.
Texas at the centre
Texas has seen the highest above-average turnout rate so far, according to Professor Mike McDonald, who runs the Election Lab database. More than 5.8 million ballots had already been cast in the state by Thursday — around 1.75 million more than at the comparable point in 2022 — and the state has emerged as a key battleground that could decide which party controls the Senate for the rest of Donald Trump’s presidency. Texas does not register voters by party, so partisan breakdowns there rely on modelling rather than registration records.
Nationally, the picture is clearer but still partial: in the roughly half of states that require voters to register a political affiliation, figures on Thursday showed 44% of early ballots cast by Democrats, 31.2% by Republicans and 24.7% by voters with no party affiliation. That is a snapshot of who has voted early in those states — not a prediction of the result, and not a measure of who those voters chose.
Hispanic communities are also seeing much higher turnout than usual, the Election Lab data show, including in Texas, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida — the three states that require voters to submit their race when they register. Voting among white people, by contrast, is on par with 2022 early-voting figures in those states.
What early votes do — and do not — tell us
High early turnout does not, on its own, predict a winner. Much of the apparent surge may reflect voters who would otherwise have voted on Election Day choosing to vote earlier, rather than entirely new voters. Analysts also caution that early-vote party shares, especially modelled shares in states like Texas and Georgia, do not indicate how individual voters cast their ballots, and that late advertising, get-out-the-vote efforts and legal fights over ballots can still shift the final result.
Overall turnout, however, appears on track to outpace 2022 and possibly even 2018, which set the modern midterm turnout record by beating a mark that had stood since 1914. In 2022, a total of 45.9 million Americans voted early; the 2026 total has already come close to that figure days before Election Day, with in-person early voting in Texas ending on Friday, October 30, and Election Day itself still to come. Polls close at different times across the country on November 3, beginning at 6 p.m. Eastern Time in parts of Kentucky and Indiana, with the final polls not closing until 1 a.m. Eastern Time in parts of Alaska. Until those votes are counted, the early-vote total is best read as a measure of enthusiasm and organisation — not as a result.
What remains uncertain
All figures in this article are Election Lab totals as reported on October 29, compiled from official state data; they are unofficial and subject to revision as states update their counts. Party shares cover only the roughly half of states that record party affiliation, and Texas partisan estimates are modelled, not registration-based. Early ballots cast are not the same as votes counted, and the final turnout and outcome will not be known until after Election Day.
FAQ
How many people had voted early by October 29?
More than 43 million, according to University of Florida Election Lab data reported Thursday, up from 40.5 million on Wednesday night.
When is Election Day?
Tuesday, November 3, 2026. All 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats are contested.
Why is Texas important?
More than 5.8 million Texans had already voted — about 1.75 million more than in 2022 — in a state whose Senate result could decide control of the Senate.
Does early voting predict the winner?
No. Early-vote party shares cover only some states, do not show who voters chose, and many early voters would otherwise have voted on Election Day.
Sources
- BBC via When2Meet mirror — https://when2meet.net/more-than-43-million-ballots-cast-so-far-in-midterms-early-voting-surge/
- Daily Letter — https://dailyletter.us/story/40-5-million-americans-have-already-voted-8-5-million-ahead-of-2022-s-pace
- ABC News analysis via KOIL — https://newstalk1290koil.com/2026/10/28/democratic-enthusiasm-seen-among-less-frequent-voters-in-key-states-of-texas-and-georgia-analysis-shows/
- BritBrief — https://britbrief.co.uk/politics/elections/2026-midterms-trump-faces-major-test-in-us-elections.html
