Trump, Harris Enter Final Week of Campaign: Here’s the Swing-State Vote Breakdown

By Epoch - Jack Phillips - :10/28/2024

With Election Day just more than a week away and a flurry of presidential campaign stops scheduled, nearly 44 million people have voted early in person or via mail-in ballots so far. Registered Republican voters are going to the polls earlier and returning more mail-in ballots in 2024 than in 2020.

Ahead of the Nov. 5 contest, the trend of registered Republican voters going to the polls earlier and returning more mail-in ballots appears to be continuing, and this has eaten into Democrats’ early-voting totals, data show.

For overall early voting, registered Democratic voters make up about 39.8 percent, whereas Republican voters stand at about 36 percent in states that report party affiliation, according to data compiled by the University of Florida’s Election Lab.Story continues below advertisement

And for early in-person voting, Republicans have a 600,000-vote advantage over Democrats. But Democrats have a 4.8 million advantage in terms of mail-in ballot returns so far, data show.

For years, former President Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to cast only in-person ballots on Election Day. But he has largely reversed course in recent months as he and his party have acknowledged the obvious benefit of having Republican voters bank their votes as early as possible.

Swing States by the Numbers

While Arizona reports only mail-in ballot returns, Republicans, with 542,179 votes, have a nearly 90,000-vote lead over their Democratic counterparts, with 454,668 votes cast, in the state, according to data released as of the afternoon of Oct. 28. Unaffiliated voters make up about 23 percent of the total, or 297,000 ballot returns.

Democrats have a 371,000-vote advantage over Republicans in Pennsylvania, which is reporting only mail-in ballots, data show. Unaffiliated voters make up about 130,203 ballots cast, while Democrats have cast 761,526 votes and Republicans have cast 390,118 votes.

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Republicans have a more than 1 percent lead over Democrats in North Carolina so far. While 937,910 Democrats have returned ballots, Republicans have returned 961,706. Unaffiliated voters account for about 920,386 of ballots submitted, data show.

Nevada figures show that 255,805 registered Republicans have voted, compared with 223,729 Democrats. Another 164,519 unaffiliated voters have cast their ballots.

Georgia does not report party affiliation, but data show that more than 2.8 million people have cast their ballots so far. That’s more than half the total cast during the entire 2020 election, officials say.

Michigan and Wisconsin also do not report party affiliation, but more than 1.8 million and 858,000 voters have cast ballots in the two states, respectively.

Top Battleground State

The Harris and Trump presidential campaigns have each visited the key state of Pennsylvania more than any other swing state in recent weeks.

From Labor Day—on Sept. 2—through this past weekend, the campaigns have made a combined 43 visits to Pennsylvania, which is more than all of their visits to Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia taken together. The campaigns have visited those three states 40 times since Sept. 2.

Among battleground states, Pennsylvania has the highest number of electoral votes, with 19.

There has been a stark contrast in Wisconsin: Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz visited the state eight times between Oct. 14 and Oct. 27, compared with just one visit by former President Trump and running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) during that span. The Republicans are headed back to Wisconsin this week, including for a rally in Milwaukee.

In addition to the two candidates’ appearances, tech billionaire Elon Musk has held multiple events in Pennsylvania, offering a $1 million prize each day to a registered voter in a swing state who fills out a survey in support of the First and Second Amendments. On Oct. 28, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner filed a lawsuit against Musk and his America PAC, asking a state judge to shut down his election-related sweepstakes.

Harris has held recent events with singer Beyoncé in Texas and former first lady Michelle Obama in Michigan.

Where Candidates Are Going in Final Week

The candidates’ evolving travel schedules will tell us much about the battlegrounds that they believe will matter most on Election Day.

Harris and Trump are aggressively competing in the seven swing states that will ultimately decide the election. They are the three so-called “Blue Wall” states—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—in addition to Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina.

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Harris spent Oct. 27 in Pennsylvania, with Michigan scheduled next. And after an Oct. 29 closing argument in Washington, she plans to visit North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on Oct. 30 alone. She heads to Nevada and Arizona on Oct. 31.

Trump is booked to host at least one rally every day this week: Oct. 28 in Georgia, Oct. 29 in Pennsylvania, Oct. 30 in Wisconsin, Oct. 31 in Nevada, Nov. 1 in Wisconsin again, and Nov. 2 in Virginia.

These schedules are likely to change, however, based on the campaigns’ intelligence on the ground.

Over the past weekend, Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, while Harris made multiple stops in Pennsylvania.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Jack Philips