California early voting blows past last midterms Election Day eve tally by roughly 1 million votes

California voters are getting a jump on Election Day — with almost a million additional ballots already cast compared with the eve of the last midterm election.More than 6.4 million ballots had been cast as of Sunday, according to the California Secretary of State’s latest report, surpassing the roughly 5.47 million recorded the day before the November 2022 election.That’s about 934,000 additional ballots, a 17.1% increase — even with this year’s snapshot taken two days before Tuesday’s election rather than one.The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now.

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Never miss a story Pollster Paul Mitchell, of Political Data Inc, said his tracking shows an even larger increase.California’s early voting is running “well over” 2022 levels, with roughly 1.2 million to 1.3 million additional ballots returned compared with the same stage of the last midterm election, Mitchell told The California Post.Mitchell cautioned that his figures and the secretary of state’s totals use different reporting cutoffs.County processing and reporting can lag by about a day, complicating comparisons between election cycles.Even Los Angeles County is ahead of its 2022 pace, Mitchell said, despite that year’s competitive mayoral contest featuring Rick Caruso, whose candidacy helped draw Republican voters but ended in defeat.Mitchell said Los Angeles County’s returns were up roughly 70,000 ballots compared with the corresponding point in 2022, with the share of registered voters who had returned ballots about 2 percentage points higher.The makeup of the early electorate is also shifting, he said, pointing to a substantial increase in Latino participation statewide.At the top of the ballot this year, longtime Democrat politician Xavier Becerra faces Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, in th...