As Election Day begins, nearly 100 million people have already voted in the 2020 election, shattering records for early voting. Four states already have more ballots cast than in the 2016 election, leading elections experts to predict record turnout this year.
The U.S. Elections Project says 99.6 million people have voted early, outpacing the 2016 early vote by more than 50 million.
So far, the vote total equates to 72.3% of all the votes cast in the 2016 election.
Many eyes are on Texas, which recorded 9.7 million votes in the early period. That accounts for 108.3% of total ballots cast in the 2016 election in that state, with Tuesday's in-person voting still to be tabulated. That's part of the reason some long-time elections forecasters have the typically reliable red state as a toss-up in the 2020 presidential election.
In Hawaii, voters have cast 484,000 ballots -- 110.6% of the 2016 total. Washington state (105.4%) and Montana (102.4%) joined them Monday night in passing their 2016 turnout.
Other states where early voting has passed 90% of their 2016 totals include New Mexico (97.3%), Nevada (96.7%), Colorado and Oregon (95.8%), North Carolina (95.4%), Georgia (93.9%), Florida (93.7%) and Arizona (92.9%).
Of these states, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and Nevada will be closely watched as they could help swing the presidential election.
Registered Democrats are leading the way in early voting over registered Republicans and non-affiliated or third-party voters, according to the U.S. Elections Project. But that's only in states where that information is publicly available, accounting for 48.7 million votes cast. Swing states Texas and Georgia are not among those.
