early voting data mail ballots Democrats are showing a sharper split than in past elections: fewer requests, faster returns. NBC News and the University of Pennsylvania analyzed North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Pennsylvania less than four weeks before Election Day.
NBC News Decision Desk Analysis
The comparison covered current and historical mail ballot data in four states, using publicly available data from three states and Virginia data from L2. The result points in two directions at once. Democrats are asking for fewer mail ballots than before, but the ballots they do request are coming back more quickly.
That combination changes the usual read on early voting. A lower request total can make mail voting look weaker at first glance, while faster returns can pull those ballots back into the count sooner. In a close stretch before Election Day, that timing matters for anyone tracking whether one side is building an advantage through the mail or shifting away from it.
North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Pennsylvania
The four-state sample gives the shift more weight because it is not tied to one place. North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Pennsylvania are all part of the same pattern, even if the size of the change can differ from state to state. The available data show the behavior change is broad enough to register across that group, not isolated to a single electorate.
Joseph Fahey’s guest opinion on Trump’s fight over mail-in ballots fits the backdrop to the numbers. Donald Trump has long attacked mail voting as rife with unfounded claims of fraud, and his administration pushed new rules on how election officials could send mail ballots to voters. That fight fed concern around the Postal Service, especially after the Supreme Court blocked those new rules from taking effect.
Postal Service Confidence Shift
The polling data line up with the vote data. Before the 2024 election, 86% of Democrats were confident the Postal Service would deliver mail ballots on time. In In September Marist polling, that figure had dropped to 60% now. Republican confidence did not move in the same way after that polling snapshot.
More Democrats also said they planned to vote in person this year than said the same at this time in 2024. That does not mean mail voting has disappeared. It means the same group is still using mail ballots, but a larger share appears to be moving some of its voting behavior to Election Day and beyond the mailbox.
The remaining question is simple and practical: how far does that shift go in each of the four states, and which one changes the most before Election Day?
