Election Day is November 3, but it’s possible that as many as two-thirds of all votes in the midterm elections will come in the mail or will be cast during early voting.

Data on who is choosing to get a head start on voting provides valuable insights into the critical races that will determine control of the House and Senate this fall.

However, there are limits to this information. While the fact that you’ve voted is a generally public information, your ballot itself is secret, so this data can’t tell us how many votes a party or candidate has won. That won’t be known until after states start reporting results after polls close on Election Day.

It also only shows one slice of voters: a slice that is typically older and less Republican than the electorate as a whole.

Total ballot counts in each state come from data compiled by CNN, the Associated Press, and the data firm Catalist.

Comparisons to previous cycles come from Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit advocacy groups, including insights into who is voting before November. The charts below exclude states reporting less than 1,000 votes so far this cycle; states will be added as more ballots are cast.

In recent years, Democrats have been much more likely to vote ahead of Election Day, especially as President Donald Trump has made unfounded claims about the integrity of mail ballots.

Republicans typically prefer to vote in person during early voting or on Election Day.

These data don’t show which party a person voted for, only the party with which they’re registered and so it’s not available in states without formal party registration.

While most voters, especially in a lower-turnout midterm election, will have voted before, pre-election voters are generally slightly less likely than Election Day voters to be casting their first ballot.

Nationally in 2024, the racial breakdown of pre-election voters was virtually identical to the electorate as a whole, according to the CNN Exit Poll. However, across racial groups, pre-election voters were more likely to support Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

Pre-election voters are typically older than Election Day voters. Mail voting especially can be a convenient option for older people who might have trouble getting to the polls. In fact, in many states where voters need an excuse to vote by mail, age itself can qualify.

About half of votes in 2022 were cast on Election Day, according to federal data, with about one-fifth cast early in-person and about a third cast by mail.

That pattern shifted in 2024 when Election Day and early in-person votes each made up more than a third of votes cast, with a slightly smaller share of votes cast by mail.

If 2026 looks more like 2024, many states are likely to lag their 2022 pace early in the process before catching up once early in-person voting starts.

Data on specific dates can be messy due to reporting delays or variations in voting schedules by year. (CNN)