Democrats are changing the way they vote, requesting fewer mail-in ballots than in previous elections but returning the ones they request more quickly, according to a new NBC News Decision Desk analysis of early voting conducted in coordination with the University of Pennsylvania.
The findings, released less than four weeks before Election Day, reflect a midterm landscape shaped by concerns about mail-in voting and doubts about the reliability of the U.S. Postal Service. The shift among Democrats suggests they may abandon mail-in voting in favor of in-person voting, or take precautions to ensure their ballot arrives on time.
The implications could be significant. Since 2020, Democrats have been much more likely than Republicans to vote by mail, creating predictable patterns in how early election results change as additional votes are counted. But if those habits change, it will be harder to determine which party is generating more enthusiasm from early voting numbers, while the now-familiar red and blue “mirages” seen in recent election nights could play out differently.
For the analysis, we compared current and historical data on absentee ballot requests and returns at the same time in four states: North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. We gathered publicly available data from three states and obtained data for Virginia from L2, a leading voter data company.
Trump order heightens concerns about Postal Service
President Donald Trump has long criticized mail-in voting, calling it numerous unfounded claims of fraud. As the midterm elections approach, his administration has exercised increased control over the Postal Service, whose slowed delivery times had already prompted voting rights groups and Democrats to push their voters to consider using other methods of voting.
Just months before the first midterm election mail-in ballots were released, the Postal Service followed a directive from Trump to impose new rules on how election officials could send those ballots to voters. The new requirements ultimately won’t apply to this year’s midterm elections, but the high-profile legal battle has amplified concerns about the reliability of the postal service.
Confidence that the Postal Service would deliver ballots on time has plummeted among Democrats, from 86% before the 2024 election to 60% now, according to a Marist poll in September, just after the Supreme Court blocked the Postal Service’s new rules from taking effect. Republican confidence remains unchanged. Meanwhile, more Democrats said they plan to vote in person this year than said the same at the same time in 2024, according to an NBC News poll.
The early voting data we’ve looked at suggests that what these Democratic voters can actually do depends on when voters can request an absentee ballot in each state.
In some states, voters can register on a permanent list of absentee voters or on an annual list at the beginning of each year. If voters could request their ballots well before concerns about the Postal Service became national news, Democrats are still voting by mail but are taking steps to return those ballots more quickly to election officials, the analysis shows.
But if Democrats are faced with the choice of whether or not to request an absentee ballot only after the Postal Service challenges, it’s more likely that ballot requests will be down compared to previous election years.
Changing Early Voting Habits
In North Carolina, where the Senate race is poised to help decide control of the chamber, registrants typically request an absentee ballot in the months before each particular election. As a result, few people had requested absentee ballots for the upcoming midterms before the Postal Service attempted to impose its new rules.
So far, Democrats in the state are both less likely to request and more likely to return mail-in ballots compared to 2022, the most recent midterm election year. The decline is greater among Democratic registered voters, at 40%, than among Republican registered voters or among independent or third-party registered voters, at 18% and 23%, respectively. Additionally, Democratic registrants who requested mail-in ballots are more likely to have already returned them in 2026 (22%) than in 2022 (17%).
In Georgia, a state with competitive Senate and gubernatorial elections and a similar absentee ballot request policy, we see the same trend. While it is not possible to directly replicate the North Carolina analysis because registrants in the state do not report a party of record and national mail-in ballots were only sent out this week, we can use how each precinct voted in 2024 as a proxy for voter partisanship.
As in North Carolina, the analysis shows that requests for absentee ballots are down more in precincts that overwhelmingly supported Kamala Harris (52%) than in precincts that overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump (39%).
The story is different in Virginia. Unlike North Carolina or Georgia, Virginia allows registrants to put themselves on a permanent absentee mailing list, and a substantial share of returned absentee ballots are cast by voters registered on that permanent list. As a result, there was no decline in absentee ballot requests compared to the last general election held in the state.
But like in Georgia and North Carolina, Democrats are returning their mail-in ballots more quickly. In the most Democratic precincts, 69% more ballots have been returned at this point in the 2026 elections than in 2025, compared to 5% fewer ballots in the most Republican precincts.
One advantage of Virginia’s analysis is that it is one of the few states with significant in-person early voting at this point in the election calendar.
Compared to 2025, there are already more in-person votes in precincts that overwhelmingly supported Harris (+10%) in 2024 than in precincts that overwhelmingly supported Trump (-14%). But only a small portion of that increase is caused by the shift from mail-in voting to in-person early voting, so that doesn’t explain most of the increase in in-person early voting.
Still, the relatively higher rate of people voting early in person in Democratic precincts compared to Republican precincts suggests that most Democrats who abandon mail voting, including in North Carolina and Georgia, might vote in person rather than not vote at all.
Finally, consider Pennsylvania, which maintains an annual list of absentee ballot requests. Among the four states analyzed, it was the one that recorded the highest share of mail-in votes in the 2024 presidential election: 27%, compared to 11% for Virginia, 5% for North Carolina and 5% for Georgia.
When registrants request an absentee ballot in Pennsylvania, they are permitted to request an absentee ballot for each subsequent election during that calendar year. Many registrants who request an absentee ballot for the May primary election also request an absentee ballot for the upcoming general election.
As in North Carolina and Georgia, there are fewer requests for absentee ballots from Democrats at this point in 2026 than in 2022. However, there is no difference among Democrats requesting an absentee ballot by May. Instead, the decline is concentrated in mail-in ballot requests after May, likely reflecting increased uncertainty about the Postal Service since the summer.
Additionally, consistent with other findings, Democrats are returning their mail-in ballots faster than in the past. A higher percentage of mail-in ballots requested by registered Democrats have already been returned (20%) compared to the same period in 2022 (15%).
Why changing voting habits could complicate the analysis of election nights
These changes in Democratic voting behavior present two challenges for election analysts: determining what early voting data reveals about voter enthusiasm and understanding what happens on election night as results are processed.
At this point, it is difficult to use initial mail-in voting data to assess each party’s chances of success.
The relative decline in mail-in ballot requests could be interpreted as a sign that Democrats have less momentum heading into the midterm elections than current polls indicate. But Democrats could also move from mail-in voting to in-person voting, as the results in Virginia suggest.
Conversely, the relative increase in mail-in ballot returns among Democrats could mean that the party’s voters are particularly enthusiastic about the upcoming election. But this trend is also consistent with these Democrats returning their mail-in ballots more quickly to address concerns about slowing postal service.
Observing who votes in person over the coming weeks will test these competing narratives. Still, we won’t have a clear idea of voter enthusiasm until we know who will show up on Election Day.
Beyond that, our results highlight the need for caution when interpreting early voting data and election night results.
Analysts often rely on voting patterns from previous elections as key reference points to assess each party’s performance on election night. But if more Democrats vote in person or mail-in ballots are sent out more quickly, the timing of when Democratic votes are reported and counted could change significantly. So what may appear to be an overperformance or underperformance by Democrats on election night could instead be a reflection of a new shift in the electoral landscape.
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