It's still early, but voter turnout for the 2022 midterms appears to be on pace to shatter previous records.
The big picture: The 2018 midterm election broke records for early voting and voter turnout. All eyes are on 2022 to see if such a feat can happen again.
Details: More than 5.8 million ballots have already been cast across 39 states in the 2022 midterm election, according to new data from Edison Research and Catalist, per CNN. The data show that voting numbers remain on par with the 2018 midterms.
By the numbers: Over 122 million people voted in the 2018 midterm elections, which was the highest in a midterm election year since 1978, according to the Pew Research Center.
- As of Oct. 22, 2018, about 5 million people had already voted early in those midterms. This would suggest that numbers for 2022 are on par with 2018.
- In total, 36 million voters cast their ballots ahead of time in the 2018 midterms, per Politico.
Zoom in: We're seeing high early voter turnout play out across multiple states.
- Georgia has already smashed its record for early voting since the first day early voting was allowed, Fox 5 Atlanta reports. First-day numbers were twice as high as the same day in 2018.
- North Carolina saw a slight dip in early voters compared to 2018 (135,400 in 2022 vs 136,500 in 2018 on the first day of in-person early voting, but the voter turnout "was on par" with 2018, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
- Ohio saw a 2.7% bump this year compared to 2018 for the first week of early voting, the Columbus Dispatch reports.
The bottom line: It's too early to tell how high voter turnout will be for 2022. But all signs point toward this year being on pace to match — if not surpass — the record-breaking 2018.
