(The Center Square) — Republicans may be eclipsing Democrats in early in-person voting this year in Virginia, though Democrats appear to be outperforming Republicans in submitting mail-in ballots, according to data compiled by the nonprofit Virginia Public Access Project.
Just two weeks out from the presidential election, Republicans are likely to have cast 46.5% of early in-person ballots, while Democrats likely account for 45.5%.
Since Virginia “does not require voter registration by party, and ballots are not counted until election day,” the project uses voter IDs from the Virginia Daily Absentee List and data from a political data firm to make its estimations. The likely party for 8% of the ballots was unknown.
Democrats have likely submitted 63.6% of mail-in ballots, while Republicans have submitted just 25.8%, and party affiliation for 10.6% is unknown.
As Virginia holds elections every year, the project has tracked the share of early in-person and mail-in ballots by party since 2021, and this presidential election year is the first in which Republicans may have outpaced Democrats at the ballot box thus far.