With the number of New Jerseyans utilizing in-person early voting continuing to explode, a total of 1,322,294 votes have already been cast in advance of Tuesday’s general election, according to an analysis by Associated Press election researcher Ryan Dubicki.
That brings statewide turnout so far to 20% of registered voters and approximately 22% of active voters.
In the first five days of New Jersey’s nine-day early voting period, 632,843 voters cast in-person ballots – nearly 10% of all registered voters in the state. Of those early voters, 38% are Republicans, 36% are Democrats, and 26% are unaffiliated.
Election officials mailed out 1,110,187 vote-by-mail ballots, with 65.6% of those ballots (689,451) already marked as returned.
Democrats have a 54%-19% edge in ballots mailed, and a 59%-21% edge in ballots returned. Democrats are returning VBMs at a rate of 71%, while the GOP return rate is 69%; Unaffiliated voters are sending back their mail-in ballots at a rate of 53%.
In the 7th district congressional race between freshman Republican Rep. Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield) and Democrat Sue Altman, 152,227 votes have already been cast: 76,991 mail-in ballots and 75,236 in-person early votes.
Of the 118,236 ballots mailed, 48% are from Democrats and 25% are from Republicans. Democrats have returned 40,445 ballots (52.5%), while 25.7% of the VBMs (19,762) are from Republicans.
In NJ-7 early voting, Republicans have an edge: 34,449 (45.8%) are from Republicans, and 21,608 (28.7%) are from Democrats.
Among the total advance ballots cast in the 7th district, 40.8% are from Democrats, 35.6% are from Republicans, and 23.1% from unaffiliated voters.