New Jerseyans are voting early like Chris Christie in an expensive hotel room, with 381,147 in-person early votes on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

With 637,478 mail-in ballots returned so far, 1,018,625 voters — 15% of the total electorate and about 17% of actively registered voters — have already voted in the 2024 general election, according to an analysis by Ryan Dubicki, a contributor from Associated Press. election researcher.

In the highly competitive congressional race in the 7th District between Republican incumbent Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield) and Democrat Sue Altman, 116,898 votes have already been cast, a turnout of more than 18% a week before Election Day.

In NJ-7, Republicans outpace Democrats in early voting by 7,385 votes, 46%-30%, but Democrats hold a 19,274-vote lead in returned ballots, 53%-26%. In total, advance votes cast 11,889 more Democrats than Republicans (44%-34%).

County clerks in the 7th have sent 56,536 VBMs to Democrats, 27,536 to Republicans and 30,971 to unaffiliated voters. Democrats have 19,210 outstanding mail-in ballots, while 10,484 Republicans and 16,627 unaffiliated voters have not yet returned their ballots or had them marked as received by election officials.

Statewide, Republicans outnumber Democrats in early voting, from 144,644 (37.9%) to 139,999 (36.7%). But in vote-by-mail, Democrats are ahead by a nearly 3-1 margin: 383,062 (60%) to 130,362 (20%).

Nearly six in ten mail-in ballots (57.7%) across the state have already been marked as received; Democrats have a 64% return rate, while 61% of Republicans and 42.5% of them have returned it.