Early Voting 2026: Nearly 48 Million Ballots Cast as Texas Early Voting Ends and Dallas County Sets Records

Nearly 48 million Americans have voted early in the 2026 midterm elections. The University of Florida Election Lab's tracker recorded 47,922,669 early votes by midday Friday, October 30 - already past the roughly 45.9 million early ballots cast in the entire 2022 midterm, with Election Day still four days away. Counts moved through the day and vary slightly by tracker as states report: the Election Lab summary published earlier Friday put the figure above 46 million, about 24.1 million of them cast in person and 21.7 million returned by mail.

Texas is one of the engines of the surge. More than 6.3 million Texans had voted early as of Wednesday, the Associated Press reported - about 50 percent more than at the same point in 2022. Dallas County set the tone on the first day, when 76,079 voters cast ballots, a county record reported by County Judge Clay Jenkins and the county elections department, past the previous record of 60,573 set in 2020. The tally published from Texas Secretary of State data after ten days of early voting put Dallas County at 862,660 early ballots in total - 820,979 in person and 41,681 by mail. Early voting in Texas ended Friday.

The numbers say who is voting, not how. In the states that report party affiliation, the AP counted about 6.8 million Democrats and 5.2 million Republicans among the early voters, and those figures cover only part of the country and say nothing about which candidates the ballots named. What is settled is participation: the 2026 midterm electorate turned out early at a scale no midterm has reached. The rest of the answer arrives Tuesday, November 3, when polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and anyone in line at closing time may cast a ballot.