In past reports, we compared 2024 early voting to 2020 (presidential to presidential). What it showed was that early in-person voting was up and mail voting was way, way down (which makes sense due to the pandemic four years ago). It also showed the WOW counties were performing better than Dane and Milwaukee in terms of the rate of change and share of the statewide early vote.
Today, we are comparing the early turnout (mail plus in-person) to the same point in the 2022 election. As you might expect, it shows an overall large increase in early votes. More specifically it shows a massive increase in in-person voting with a more modest increase in mail voting).
Statewide, the total early vote is 108% higher than at the same point in 2022. The WOW counties continue to perform well with two of the three outpacing the statewide average. The Dane and Milwaukee increases lag behind the stateside average. Thus, we see a decline in Dane and Milwaukee’s share of the statewide total.
That decline is 3.4% (2 days ago it was closer to 4%).
Here is the data:
The box in the lower right corner shows that decline in the statewide early vote for Dane/Milwaukee. Meanwhile the WOW counties and outstate counties each are picking up a greater share of the statewide early vote. Early voting in Washington County -the state’s reddest county – continues to be extremely strong.
Next, we’ll check in on the 16 municipalities we have been tracking.
You will see early voting increases across the board but note that the increases for the cities are generally lower than for the rural and suburban examples. This latter point is consistent with our past analysis that tracked the 2024 early vote compared to 2020.
The Bottom Line
As always, it can be a mistake to read too much into this data because we don’t know who exactly is voting (Wisconsin voters do not register by political party) and no one knows the extent to which the early vote is nothing more than cannibalization of election day voting.
But it is reasonable to believe that the GOP effort to get people out to vote early is working.
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