WASHINGTON, DC – Fewer Americans plan to vote before Election Day this year than in 2020, but the percentage is still higher than in election years before the COVID-19 pandemic spurred the widespread adoption of early voting. Currently, more than half of registered voters (54%) say they have already voted or plan to vote before Election Day, up from 64% in 2020.

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The latest results are based on a Gallup poll from Oct. 14 to 27 that examined when voters plan to vote and how.

During the poll’s field period, 20% of registered voters said they had already voted, while another 34% planned to do so before Election Day and 42% planned to vote on Election Day, November 5 . In a similar poll in 2020, 36% had already voted at the time they were interviewed, 28% planned to vote before Election Day, and 32% would vote on Election Day.

Last month, 40% of registered voters expected to vote before Election Day, compared to 54% today. Gallup has observed a similar pattern in recent elections, with an increasing number of early voters moving closer to Election Day than earlier in the campaign.

Democratic voters are still significantly more likely to vote early than Republican voters. Currently, 63% of registered voters who are Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents have already voted or plan to vote before Election Day, compared to 47% of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters. The Democratic-Republican gap of 16 percentage points is similar to what Gallup measured in the 2020 election (74% for Democrats and 56% for Republicans). Before 2020, Republicans and Democrats were about equally likely to vote early.

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More personal voting will be possible in 2024 than in 2020

The poll also shows that regardless of when people plan to vote this year, more people will vote in person than in 2020 (67% vs. 60%, respectively). Accordingly, fewer will vote by mail or absentee than in 2020 (26% vs. 35%), when the election took place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Democrats and Democratic voters (35%) are twice as likely as Republicans and Republican voters (17%) to vote absentee. Both party groups showed similar declines in absentee voting compared to 2020: down eight points for Republicans and 10 points for Democrats.

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When looking at when and how Americans plan to vote, the largest share of voters, 39%, plan to vote in person on Election Day. The next largest groups are early voters who plan to vote in person (28%) or vote by mail or absentee (25%). Two percent of U.S. registered voters will vote absentee on Election Day, and the rest are unsure when and how they will vote or do not plan to vote at all.

Forty-six percent of Republicans and Republican leaners plan to vote in person on Election Day, compared to 33% of Democrats and Democratic leaners.

Republican versus Democratic early voters vary in how they will vote. Republicans are about twice as likely to vote early in person (31%) as by mail or absentee (15%), while more Democratic voters will vote early by mail (34%) than vote in person before Election Day (27%) .

Great voter enthusiasm

Seventy percent of registered voters say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting, similar to the 71% measured in August, but higher than the 56% in March. The increase this summer was largely due to Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents expressing greater enthusiasm after Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket, rising from 57% to 79% “enthusiastic.”

Now Democrats maintain high election enthusiasm, at 77%, compared to 67% among Republicans.

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The overall level of voter enthusiasm is at the high end of what Gallup measured at the end of the recent presidential elections, along with the 2004 (67%), 2008 (68%) and 2020 (69%) elections.

The enthusiasm of both Republicans and Democrats is similar to what they were four years ago.

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Since Gallup first asked this question in 2000, the enthusiasm measure has shown a mixed relationship with presidential election outcomes. Democratic enthusiasm advantages in 2008 and 2020 preceded party victories, while a Republican advantage in 2012 came in a year their party lost. Republicans also had an advantage in 2000, when George W. Bush won the Electoral College. In other years, no party had a clear advantage in enthusiasm.

American attention to the election is also relatively high, with 83% of registered voters and 77% of American adults saying they paid “a fair amount of attention” to the election. Both figures are comparable to what Gallup has measured in presidential elections over the past four years. Republicans and Democrats are thinking about this year’s elections in similar ways.

Harris campaign reaches more voters

More registered voters say they have been contacted by Kamala Harris’ campaign (42%) than by Donald Trump’s campaign (35%). The question is about contact by email, telephone, in person, by post or in some other way. When Gallup asked the same question in the 2008 and 2012 election years, about one in three voters reported having been contacted by major party campaigns, although Barack Obama’s figure was slightly higher in 2008.

The majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 58%, say the Harris campaign has contacted them. That compares with 40% of Republicans and Republican supporters who say the Trump campaign has contacted them, which is on the low end of what Gallup has measured in the past for supporters of the nominee’s party. However, the 25% of Republicans who say they have been contacted by Harris’s campaign and the 31% of Democrats who have been contacted by Trump’s are fairly typical of contact from an opposing party’s campaign.

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Implications

Millions of Americans have already fulfilled their civic duty and cast their votes in this year’s presidential election. Early voting options have expanded in recent years, and the 2024 election could be the second in which more votes are cast before Election Day than on it.

In an election climate that generally favors the Republican Party, the Harris campaign’s efforts to engage voters — and Democrats’ greater enthusiasm about voting — have helped Democrats make this a competitive election .

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Read more about how the Gallup Poll Social Series work.

View the full demand responses and trends (PDF download).

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