Kansans are showing up to vote early in record numbers. What could that mean?

More voters in Kansas’ largest counties are turning out to cast ballots in the first few days of early voting than in other recent presidential cycles, according to election officials.

The first two days of early voting in Johnson County saw 32,734 ballots cast — an 80% increase from the same period in 2020.

Saturday was the “single largest day of early in-person voting” in recent history for Wyandotte County, Deputy Election Commissioner Zachary Hunt told The Kansas City Star. Another high-turnout day on Monday brought the total number of Wyandotte County votes to just over 4,200, including returned mail ballots.

Monday’s 3,046 votes cast in Shawnee County was the highest single-day early voting turnout since the Friday before the 2016 general election, said County Election Manager Jay Hatfield.

And the more than 4,000 Douglas County residents who have cast ballots since last Wednesday is “well above any election we’ve ever had” for the same period of advance voting, said Douglas County Clerk Jaime Shew.

As the presidential election cycle enters its home stretch, it’s unclear what high early voting turnout indicates about voters’ enthusiasm for President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris and other down-ballot candidates, said Neal Allen, a political science professor at Wichita State University.

“We should not make too much of early voting numbers,” Allen said. “They might predict a large turnout for Democrats in northeast Kansas, but we expected that already with the popularity of Rep. (Sharice) Davids and the growing Democratic strength in that region.”

Democrats and their allies shifted heavily to early voting in 2020 due to pandemic concerns, a trend that carried over to the 2022 midterms. Allen said it’s safe to assume the same will be true this year.

“But President Trump’s criticisms of early voting have pushed his supporters to vote more on Election Day. So the effect is unclear,” Allen said.

Of the counties that The Star requested a breakdown of early voting party affiliation from, only Wyandotte County provided one. So far, 58.5% of ballots there have been cast by Democrats, 29.5% by Republicans and 11.4% by unaffiliated voters, Hunt said.

State senator Ethan Corson of Fairway, a former executive director of the Kansas Democratic Party, said he’s cautiously optimistic about the early data.

“I’m glad that there’s high early vote turnout. I would be a little concerned if there wasn’t,” Corson said. “But at the same time, I don’t think you can necessarily extrapolate that to how particular races are going to turn out or anything like that.”

Sedgwick County, a conservative stronghold and the state’s second-largest county by population, had 3,627 voters on its first day of early in-person balloting Monday. A county spokesperson said there’s no available data to compare early turnout rates to recent presidential cycles.

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