More than 51 million Americans have already voted in the 2026 midterm elections — and the running total has now passed the early vote for the entire last midterm cycle with three days still to go before Election Day. The University of Florida's Election Lab put the national early-vote total at 51.31 million ballots as of 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 31, in-person and by mail combined. It is the latest milestone in a surge this desk has tracked tally by tally — the count passed a record 47.9 million earlier in the week — and it now stands above the 45.9 million early ballots cast across the whole of the 2022 midterms.

Source: University of Florida Election Lab tally, reported by The Guardian, Oct. 31

The Guardian, using the same Election Lab data, reported more than 50.5 million early votes by Saturday morning — already nearly five million above the entire 2022 early total — with ballots still being cast at early-voting sites in many states through the weekend and mail ballots still arriving. Four to five million ballots a day have been arriving in the final stretch, according to the Election Lab figures reported by Reuters, a pace faster than in most previous elections.

Texas shows the surge most clearly

Texas has become the clearest example of the surge. More than seven million Texans had voted early by Saturday, about 1.5 million more than the state recorded during the whole 2022 midterm cycle, according to the Election Lab figures reported by The Guardian. In Harris County, which includes Houston, an Associated Press analysis found 862,700 people had voted by Wednesday, compared with 564,500 at the same point in 2022. Texas is a genuine Senate battleground this year: Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is running against Democrat James Talarico in one of the most closely followed Senate contests in the country.

The composition of the vote has shifted as well as its size. A Friday-evening count put the total at 49.6 million, made up of about 26.8 million in-person early ballots and 22.9 million returned mail ballots. In-person voting accounts for most of the growth: more than 28 million people had voted early in person by Saturday, compared with about 20.5 million across the entire early-voting period in 2022, according to the Reuters reporting of the Election Lab data.

What the party numbers do — and do not — show

In the states that record the party registration of early voters, 10.7 million registered Democrats had cast ballots by Saturday, compared with 7.8 million registered Republicans, according to the Election Lab data. Scripps News put the Saturday snapshot in those reporting states at 43.2 percent Democratic, 31.7 percent Republican and 25.1 percent independent or unaffiliated. Those figures need careful reading: party registration is available in only some states — 27 by one count — and registration describes who a voter is registered as, not which candidate they chose. Election experts, including Michael McDonald of the University of Florida, who runs the Election Lab database, stress that early totals measure participation and energy, not results: an early ballot can simply replace a ballot that would otherwise have been cast on Election Day, and the Election Day electorate is not in these numbers at all.

The surge is not confined to Texas. South Carolina has recorded an 83 percent rise in early voting compared with 2022, with Kansas up 34 percent, Maine up 44 percent and Michigan up 32 percent, according to the Associated Press figures reported alongside the national tally. North Carolina passed two million early votes by Friday — just over 23 percent of the state's eventual turnout in past terms — before its early-voting period ended on Saturday with at least 2.6 million ballots cast, according to state officials reported by WLOS. In Georgia, early voting ended Friday approaching three million ballots, a record for a midterm in the state, the Georgia News Network reported, with turnout highest in north and central Georgia.

What is at stake on Tuesday

Voters on Tuesday, November 3, will decide control of Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump's second term. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are on the ballot, along with 35 of the 100 Senate seats. Republicans enter Election Day defending a 53-47 Senate majority and a narrow edge in the House, while Democrats are targeting Senate races in states that have recently voted Republican, including Texas, Alaska and Kansas. President Trump campaigned in his home state of Florida on October 30 with a rally in Daytona Beach, and Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to campaign in northern New York on November 2, the final day of the campaign.

What happens next

Early-voting windows are closing state by state this weekend — North Carolina's ended at 3 p.m. Saturday and Georgia's ended Friday — while states including New Jersey run a final early day today. Polls then open nationwide on Tuesday, November 3. Weather may play a part in the final days: a large storm system is moving across the country, bringing flood risk to parts of the Southwest on Sunday and rain and possible severe thunderstorms to parts of the Plains and the South on Election Day, according to Fox Weather and the National Weather Service. The Election Lab will keep updating its tally as mail ballots arrive, but the first real answers come when polls close on Tuesday night.