Half of voters plan to cast their ballots early — with a stark partisan divide

Americans are more eager to vote early than they were before the pandemic, but a deep partisan divide on early voting remains, the latest national NBC News poll shows.

With not even a month to go before Election Day, 5% of registered voters said they had already cast their ballots (3% by mail and 2% in person), according to the new poll, which surveyed people between Oct. 4-8.

Another 47% said they plan to vote early (20% by mail and 27% in person).

Overall, 52% of voters said they’re planning to cast their ballots early this year, with 44% planning to vote in person on Election Day. That’s roughly in line with NBC News poll results from a similar point in the 2022 midterm elections, when 49% of voters said they planned to vote early and 47% planned to vote on Election Day.

Meanwhile, 3% said they aren’t sure which method they will use to vote and 1% said they won’t vote.

But the latest survey results represent a dip from the 2020 election, which took place amid the throes of the Covid pandemic, when by early October, 59% of respondents said they planned to vote early and 37% planned to wait to vote on Election Day. (By late October, the share of people saying they’d vote early had risen to 68%.)

The new numbers are also significantly higher than the 41% who said they planned to vote early in early November 2016, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll at the time, although fewer states offered early voting at a comparable time.