With early voting turnout breaking records in key battleground states, a large number of Republican voters are showing up, potentially paving the way for a win by former President Donald Trump, according to veteran political journalist Mark Halperin.
Speaking on Tuesday’s episode of the Morning Meeting podcast, Halperin discussed reports suggesting Republicans are outperforming Democrats in early voting, particularly in battleground states like Nevada and North Carolina.
“If the early vote numbers stay the way they are—and that’s a big if—we’ll almost certainly know before Election Day who’s going to win,” Halperin said.
“Make no mistake, if these numbers hold up in the states where we can partially understand the data, we’ll know Donald Trump is going to win on Election Day,” he added.
Republicans used to excel at early voting before Trump turned against mail-in voting in 2020, spreading baseless conspiracy theories about the process and encouraging his supporters to vote on Election Day instead. However, the party is once again pushing its voters to cast ballots early, with Trump endorsing the change.
“I’m telling everyone to vote early,” Trump said last week on a radio show hosted by conservative Dan Bongino, who has widely spread false claims about early voting and the 2020 election.
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Republicans seem to be responding. In North Carolina, where Democrats had an edge of more than 30 percentage points in early voting at this point in 2022, they are ahead by just 1 percentage point this year.
In Nevada, where Democrats have traditionally relied on a strong early vote to counter GOP Election Day turnout, about 1,000 more Republicans than Democrats have cast early ballots this year.
Despite these trends, the implications for the election remain unclear. Early vote data only reveals party registration, not how voters cast their ballots. The makeup of early voters can shift from day to day, and what seems like a trend in early voting may change once Election Day ballots are counted.
While Halperin cautions that these early numbers could be “overread,” he also noted that every analyst he’s spoken to in the last 24 hours has said that if this trend continues, Trump’s chances of winning are very high.
“If this continues, Donald Trump can’t lose because the Democrats won’t be able to do well enough on Election Day,” Halperin said.
Sean Spicer, co-host of the podcast and Trump’s first White House press secretary, offered his thoughts on the trend, attributing it to three factors: the cleanup of voter rolls in many states, effective voter registration efforts before the election, and the influence of issues and governance on their side.
“It’s almost like the preseason—getting folks registered, getting them excited, and staying in touch with them mattered,” Spicer said.
The return to bipartisan early voting has shattered records. North Carolina and Georgia both reported record turnout on the first day of in-person early voting, and this surge has even spread to states like South Carolina, which set its own record when it opened early voting on Monday despite not being competitive at the presidential level.