Early Voting 2026: More Than 51 Million Ballots Are Already In, a Midterm Record — and Chicago's Last Early Day Is Monday
The national early vote passed the whole 2022 total before the weekend ended, with in-person voting driving the surge. Chicago voters get one more early day, Monday, before Tuesday's Election Day.
More Americans have already voted in this year's midterms than voted early in the entire 2022 cycle — and Election Day is still two days away. The University of Florida's Election Lab put the early total at 51.31 million ballots as of Saturday afternoon, in person and by mail combined, against 45.9 million early ballots across the whole of the last midterms.
The surge is being driven in person. More than 28 million people had voted early in person by Saturday, compared with about 20.5 million in-person early votes in the entire 2022 early-voting period. Election experts are careful about what the numbers mean: they measure participation, not results. Ballots are not tallied by candidate before Election Day, and a bigger early vote does not by itself prove final turnout will rise by the same margin.
What is at stake Tuesday is control of Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump's second term: all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats are contested, with Republicans defending a 53-47 Senate majority and a narrow House edge.
Chicago is part of the surge, and its early window closes Monday. Early voting ends Monday, Nov. 2, at the city's ward sites — open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. — and at the two downtown locations, the Voting Supersite at 137 S. State St. and the Board of Elections office at 69 W. Washington St., which stay open until 7 p.m. on the final day. Any Chicago voter can use any early-voting site.
After Monday, the remaining route is Election Day itself: Tuesday, Nov. 3, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., at a voter's precinct or any vote center in the city.
