Election Day is one week from Tuesday, and two clear trends are already emerging in Wisconsin's early voting.
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The first trend is in in-person absentee voting. So far, 200,000 people have voted in the state of Wisconsin — well ahead of where turnout stood four years ago, when Wisconsin also had a governor's race and a U.S. Senate race on the ballot.
The second trend appears in the total number of absentee ballots returned, which also includes ballots by mail. A total of 441,000 people have voted in Wisconsin, a figure that is slightly down compared to four years ago, when 445,000 voters cast their ballots early.
A look at the numbers in some of the state's biggest counties shows the shifts in detail.
In Dane County, a strong Democratic county, just under 62,000 people have voted so far, vs 68,500 — slightly down from this time four years ago. In Milwaukee County, another large Democratic county, 70,000 people have voted this time around, close to the roughly 72,000 voted at this point four years ago.
The trend changes in Republican-leaning counties as well. In Waukesha County, about 47,500 people have voted so far this year, that's up from 44,500 from this time four years ago. In Ozaukee County, a Republican-leaning county, 11,262 votes have been cast vs 11,151 in 2022— pretty much the same as four years ago.
For context, the last two races for governor, in 2022 and 2018, each drew about 2.7 million voters statewide.
This story was reported on-air by Charles Benson and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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