Jim Hoft’s Midwest election update delivers a mixed scoreboard, which is usually what happens when election numbers refuse to fit neatly into a partisan victory graphic. Iowa’s raw early-ballot numbers favor Republicans, while Kansas is showing a significant Democratic turnout shift. Local reports from Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin add more pieces to the puzzle, although Iowa and Minnesota had no same-day turnout counts available.
In Iowa, Republican early ballots are up 40%, compared with a 20% increase for Democrats. Every watchlist county moved toward Republicans. That sounds like a strong red wave until the numbers are measured as a share of each party’s registered voters. By that calculation, early voting rose about 34% for both parties, leaving the statewide comparison essentially even. Election math has once again declined to cooperate with a simple campaign meme.
The difference between those two Iowa measurements comes largely from changes in party registration. Democratic registration fell by about 64,000 voters since October 2022, while Republican registration rose by about 29,000, according to the Iowa Secretary of State counts cited in the update. Among registered Democrats, 42.1% had voted early, up from 31.5% in 2022. Among Republicans, 24.0% had voted early, up from 17.9%. Both rates grew by roughly 34%, so neither party held an advantage statewide under that measure.
The county figures are mixed as well. Republican early-voting rates grew more in Polk, Dallas and Johnson counties. Democratic rates grew more in Linn and Scott counties. Dubuque and Sioux counties were about even. There is no tidy statewide arrow here, just a collection of numbers demanding that people read past the headline.
Kansas presents a different picture. Democratic early ballots are up 42%, while Republican early ballots are up 17%. Using IKE Lab figures, that represents an 8.4-point shift toward Democrats. The reported early-voting rates were 42.4% for Democrats and 24.8% for Republicans. Kansas does not have a comparable published 2022 rate, so the ballot comparison is the available measure.
Election Day reports show substantial activity in several local areas. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, 203,484 people had voted in person by 2:42 p.m. Eastern, equal to 81% of the county’s total Election Day vote in 2022. Overall turnout reached 50.4% by 5:40 p.m., compared with a 47% final turnout in 2022. Franklin County reported 51.8% turnout, already above its 2022 final figure of 49%.
Other local figures included 42,984 in-person voters in Detroit by 1 p.m. Eastern, 16,607 voters at polling places in Douglas County, Kansas, by 3:30 p.m. Central, and 9,600 voters at Green Bay polls by 2:30 p.m. In Douglas County, the polling-place total combined with early ballots reached 88% of the county’s 2022 final turnout. A separate county clerk figure listed 42,077 voters by 3:30 p.m. with early ballots included.
Madison reported that 16% of registered voters had voted at the polls by 11 a.m. Central, but that figure cannot be compared with 2022 because the city changed how it counts. Local reports also included an hourly precinct report from Grand Rapids and live turnout widgets for Cuyahoga, Franklin and Hamilton counties in Ohio. Because the Ohio site blocks automated access, those figures could only be collected from local news reports. The Midwest is offering plenty of numbers, but not a single neat partisan answer.
