SCRANTON, Pa. — Voters will head to the polls Tuesday to decide who will succeed President Joe Biden — Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump.
For nearly two million residents of the Commonwealth, their choice has already been made.
The Pennsylvania Department of State data shows that roughly 1.8 million mail-in and absentee ballots had been returned as of Monday morning. That’s roughly 80% of the nearly 2.2 million approved by the state’s 67 counties.
How those numbers break down across party lines, at first glance, seems to bode well for Democrats. Democratic returns outnumbered Republican returns nearly two-to-one as of Monday morning.
Dr. JoyAnna Hopper, a political science professor at the University of Scranton, said that the breakdown is not surprising — Republican voters in previous cycles were dissuaded from using mail-in ballots. However, the data shows that nearly 100,000 more Republicans requested mail-in ballots this election than in 2020.
“I think Democrats look at these numbers are happy with them, but Republicans are looking at the increase (of early voting)” and are likewise pleased, said Dr. JoyAnna Hopper, a political science professor at the University of Scranton.
However, she cautioned against reading too much from the data. “It’s difficult to know how predictive this is,” Hopper said.
The party breakdown of returns might not be an accurate reflection of how an individual voted. A Democrat who requests a ballot might vote Republican, or vice versa, after all. Officials won’t start tallying the votes until Tuesday.
The early voting figures might prove useful in explaining what happens Tuesday — regardless of who emerges victorious.
Here’s how it breaks down: