(#6464) 21 days until election results...nearly 4.5 million ballots in the counting queue

      To me 4.5 million votes received back at election offices around the country seems like a small number. Yet many states are not releasing totals for all their received ballots. Generally there are 3 weeks left to vote so if anything the numbers will begin to grow much larger. There are at least still 20 million mail in ballots coming from the west coast in Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, and California. My hope that at least 100 million ballots are cast early is still possible even with the very early ballot returns total of only 4.5 million as of this morning. What we saw in 2024, a presidential election, was more in person early voting being a higher count than mail in voting on November 5th 2024. So it isn't just mail in voting that is driving early voting.
     Early trends in states that do offer both in person voting and mail in voting numbers will be watched closely over this coming week. We can compare the totals of this election, 2026, with the presidential election of 2024. We will hopefully see greater participation in this off year election than the one where we elected a president. The reasoning for this is the obvious conundrum with the trump administration being so divisive as to rally our normally sedate electorate into a panicked frenzy. The audacity of the trump cabal has triggered a backlash unseen in modern politics in my life time with the closest being in 2018 during the midterm of trump's first appointment to the presidency.
     I expect that many voters are still concerned about mail in ballots since trump tried so desperately to rig the mail delivery system. Yet he failed and even I used the postal service to deliver my ballot. Voting early gives us time to make sure our ballot is received by election offices no matter what delivery method we use. Which is why I hope to see a record number in turnout for early voting. Early voting is also a measure of our enthusiasm to vote. It shows the powers to be just how dedicated we are to what matters most to us be it our personal lives and/or our national ambitions. Each day I will be commenting on the lead up to the final day of voting, in person or mail in, and by then we should all see how this election will likely play out!