Minnesota early voting surges 48%

Thanks so much for joining us here at 630. It's great to be with you. I'm Simone Woolridge. Minnesota is seeing a surge of voters casting ballots ahead of Election Day. About 420,000 votes had come in by last Friday, which is well ahead of the pace in 2022. And this week, we are seeing early voting records in a lot of areas with about four more days to go. Fox 9's Corin Hoggard dug into the numbers to see where the votes are coming from and whether they give us any hints about the election outcome. A line of people had to wait to enter the Hennepin County Elections Office a few times this week as a wave of early voters kept the polls busy. As of the end of last week, we were at about 48% higher for early vote than we were at the same point four years ago. Early voting is trending higher in a lot of states, but Secretary of State Steve Simon, who oversees Minnesota elections, says it may not help predict the final vote tallies. It's too early to say that this means overall bigger turnout, but I can say that there's been a clear direction in favor of early voting. Simon says early voting is up across most of the state, but the numbers are especially high in the Twin Cities metro, with Hennepin County leading the way. Minneapolis already surpassed its record number of votes cast in a midterm election. Hamlin University political science professor David Schultz says there are clues in the data. The indications are that the early voting is showing that Democrats are more excited, more enthused about voting. And national trends are saying the same thing at this point. Minnesota doesn't break down its voting data by party. But in the 27 states that do, Democrats are 45% of the early voters to 31% Republicans. But even that doesn't necessarily indicate a blue wave. Republicans are more likely to vote on election day. In fact, a Pew Research survey conducted right after the 2024 election showed Republicans actually have a 12% advantage in the number of voters casting their ballots on election day. Corinne Hockert, Fox 9.