Early voting in South Carolina has hit a record high as the deadline for ballots approaches. As of November 1, 2024, over 1.3 million registered voters have already cast their votes, according to data from SCVotes.gov. This includes a significant jump of 134,642 voters who participated just on Friday.
In total, nearly 39.5 percent of South Carolina’s 3.42 million voters have already made their voices heard. To put this in perspective, this early voting count represents 53.3 percent of the total turnout from the last presidential election in 2020, when roughly 2.53 million South Carolinians voted.
The South Carolina Election Commission will provide the final tally once all votes are counted.
It’s also noteworthy that Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, is expected to secure South Carolina’s nine electoral votes, having won 55 percent of the vote in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. No Democratic candidate has claimed victory in South Carolina since Jimmy Carter in 1976, which makes this state’s electoral votes appear very safe for Trump.
Across the nation, early voting figures have been impressive as well, with over 73.3 million votes cast so far. In states with party registration, Democrats account for 38.2 percent of early votes, while Republicans and unaffiliated voters represent 36 percent and 25.8 percent, respectively. This trend shows a strong increase in early voting among Republican voters, but the overall impact on the upcoming election remains to be seen.
With election day just around the corner, many are excited to see how this surge in early voting will play out in the election results.
