Mail-in voting became much more common in 2020 primaries as COVID-19 spread
Mail-in ballots accounted for just over half of this year’s primary votes cast in the 37 states (plus D.C.) for which data is available.
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Mail-in ballots accounted for just over half of this year’s primary votes cast in the 37 states (plus D.C.) for which data is available.
We developed this explainer to help people understand how, and why, the complex U.S. electoral process is even more so this time around.
While clearly significant, this year’s Super Tuesday on March 3 is by no means the “super-est” – or the earliest – one the Democratic Party has ever had.
After months of campaigning, debating, polling and fundraising, Democratic presidential candidates face their first real-world test Feb. 3.
Turnout in this year’s primaries for Congress and most state governorships surged compared with the last midterms in 2014, particularly among Democrats. Nearly a fifth (19.6%) of registered voters – about 37 million – cast ballots in primary elections for the U.S. House of Representatives – a 56% increase over the 23.7 million who voted in 2014’s House primaries. Turnout that year was 13.7% of registered voters.
On election night 2018, besides the exit polls there will be an additional source of data on who voted and why, developed by The Associated Press, Fox News and NORC at the University of Chicago and based on a very different methodology. That means that depending on where you go for election news, you may get a somewhat different portrait of this year’s electorate.
The 2018 midterm elections significantly boosted the number of Millennials and Generation Xers in the lower chamber.
Read a Q&A with Pew Research Center’s Ruth Igielnik and Scott Keeter about a recent study about voter files.
Senate seats have rarely flipped to the other party in recent special elections, and turnout usually lags compared with regular elections for the same seat.
Special elections to the U.S. House of Representatives tend to be low-turnout events, historically speaking, and seldom result in seats switching from one party to another.
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