At a library in Orange Park, in Florida’s Clay County, the first-day line wasn’t even long enough for a coffee: five minutes or less, voters told local reporters. About 6,500 people voted Friday in that county. It was the start, in Florida, of the home stretch.
Because while that was happening in northeast Florida, the national count wouldn’t stop. The University of Florida’s Election Lab — the source NPR and much of the press follow to track early voting — recorded nearly 21 million ballots on Friday morning. By that same Friday night, the number was different: 24.27 million. On Thursday, this site reported 16.3 million. One caution: counts don’t climb gradually, they climb in jumps, because each state reports in batches. But the direction is one, and it’s up.
Texas passes 3 million; Ohio and Delaware move the needle too
Texas, the state with the most Hispanic voters in the country, has passed 3 million: 3,082,458 ballots as of October 24, according to the On Point Politics tracker using civicAPI data. Of those, 182,193 came back by mail and 2,900,265 were cast in person. Ohio, meanwhile, reported 922,793 ballots returned as of October 23, according to the Secretary of State’s dashboard cited by the Columbus Dispatch: 527,760 in person and the rest by mail, around 11.2% of the state’s 8.2 million registered voters.
Delaware, smaller but with official numbers down to the detail, totaled 50,212 votes as of October 23 at 3:28 p.m.: 15,261 absentee and 34,951 early in-person, according to its Department of Elections official page. And in North Carolina the count stood at 525,970 ballots, with 370 sites open and same-day registration still available. Even a mid-size county feels it: in Knox County, Tennessee, 45,758 people have already voted at the halfway point, compared with 28,002 at the same point in 2022.
What these numbers say — and what they don’t
Among the states that publish their voters’ party — about 12.05 million ballots — registered Democrats account for 45.6% and Republicans for 30.5%. It sounds like a wide lead, and it is, but the fine print matters: that measures voter registration, not their vote. Nobody knows who each ballot was cast for until they are counted.
Michael McDonald himself, the University of Florida professor who runs the Election Lab, said it on NPR: early voting is a poor predictor of the final result. Republicans tend to vote more on Election Day. What can be stated is that turnout is running above 2022 and 2018 — and 2018 was the midterm with the highest turnout since 1914. And another point McDonald flagged: in states like North Carolina and Georgia, voters of color are turning out in droves.
Florida: what you need to know if you vote there
Florida’s mandatory early voting period runs October 24–31, though some counties opened as early as the 19th and others may extend through November 1. The deadline to request a mail ballot has already passed — it was October 22 at 5 p.m. — so if you have one at home, what remains is returning it. And here comes the detail most people get wrong: the ballot must arrive at the Supervisor of Elections office before 7 p.m. on November 3. The postmark is not enough. If you haven’t returned it yet, don’t drop it in a mailbox at the last minute: take it to an official drop box or your county elections office.
On Election Day, November 3, polls in Florida open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. If you are in line at 7, you vote. To check your registration, your assigned polling place and your county’s hours, the official route is your Supervisor of Elections website — or vote.gov if you don’t know where to start.
If you haven’t voted yet, here’s what remains
Check your registration today on vote.gov or your state’s election website. Don’t leave it for the 3rd: an error in your address or name gets fixed with time, not in a rush.
If you vote by mail, return your ballot as soon as possible and confirm it was received — most states offer online tracking.
And if you vote in person before the 3rd, check your county’s hours, because they change by day. In Ohio, for example, this Saturday the 24th hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; on Monday the 26th they extend to 7:30 p.m.
Official sources
- NPR / University of Florida Election Lab, October 23, 2026: Millions of Americans have already cast their votes for the midterms, data shows
- Delaware Department of Elections, official count as of October 23: 2026 General Election Voter Counts by Voting Method
- On Point Politics, Texas early vote tracker (civicAPI data): Texas Early Vote Tracker 2026
- Columbus Dispatch / Ohio Secretary of State, October 24: How many have voted early in Ohio before Election Day?
- Florida Today, Florida early voting dates: Early voting started today in 35 Florida counties
- Official voter information: vote.gov
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