Republican voters appear to be running up big leads during the opening stages of early voting in at least four of seven battleground states, in some cases not only chipping into mail-in ballot advantages that Democrats have built over the past few election cycles but surpassing them.
Overall, nearly 33 million Americans nationwide had already cast ballots in the Nov. 5 election as of Oct. 25, with at least 15 million doing so in the 36 states where early voting is underway and 17.89 million mailing in their ballots, according to the University of Florida’s U.S. Election Lab.
By Oct. 24, early votes and mail-in ballots had topped more than 1 million each in California, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, and Texas, as well as battleground states Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania….