Iowans are voting early in larger numbers than ever, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and high levels of interest in the presidential race.

Democrats have good reasons to feel optimistic about the votes banked so far.

1. Democrats have a larger lead over Republicans in absentee ballots cast than in any previous Iowa election.

These are the latest available figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office.

Absentee ballots received by Iowa county auditors as of October 21, 2020
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party	other	total
IA-01	88,497	43,790	28,678	536	161,501
IA-02	87,138	42,923	27,054	509	157,624
IA-03	87,767	45,424	25,568	661	159,420
IA-04	56,749	52,245	20,376	411	129,781
statewide	320,151	184,382	101,676	2,117	608,326

Democrats have cast 135,769 more ballots than have Republicans with nearly two weeks to go.

Two weeks before election day 2016, Democrats led by a little more than 40,000 ballots returned to county auditors, and that gap held fairly steady up to the election. Two weeks before the 2012 election, Iowa Democrats led Republicans in terms of ballots cast by a little more than 56,000, and the lead widened to about 66,500 by election day.

Republicans have limited opportunities to narrow the gap during the next two weeks, because they have requested far fewer ballots than Democrats. As of October 21, 97,319 absentee ballots requested by Democrats had not yet been returned to Iowa county auditors. Republicans had 78,473 absentee ballots outstanding.

In other words, if voters from both parties have comparable return rates, Democrats could slightly expand their lead in votes banked.

2. Democrats are far outpacing their early voting in previous presidential elections.

According to the statewide statistical report from the last general election, 265,603 Iowa Democrats voted early in 2016, about half of the 506,286 Democrats who cast ballots. The report on the 2012 general election shows that 525,624 Democrats voted, of whom 282,655 cast early ballots.

With thirteen days to go, Democrats are already at 120 percent of their 2016 early vote, and at 63 percent of their total 2016 vote. They are at 113 percent of their 2012 early vote and 61 percent of their total 2012 vote.

Meanwhile, of the 576,003 Republicans who voted in the last presidential election, 224,562 cast early ballots. State data indicate that 546,729 Republicans voted in 2012, of whom 216,741 voted before election day.

That means Republicans currently are at 82 percent of their 2016 early vote and at 32 percent of their total 2016 vote. They are at 85 percent of their 2012 early vote and just under 34 percent of their total 2012 vote.

Election day turnout does typically favor the GOP, but that’s a lot of ground for Republicans to make up on November 3.

3. Most independents who will cast a ballot this year have not done so yet.

Iowans affiliated with neither party have been less likely to vote early in past elections than have Democrats or Republicans, and that pattern is holding this year. In 2016, only 157,048 of the 481,770 no-party voters who cast ballots voted before election day. Similarly, 497,496 independents participated in the 2012 general election, of whom 178,837 voted early.

The current number of absentee ballots returned by no-party voters is just below 65 percent of the early vote from 2016 and at 21 percent of the total 2016 vote for that group. It is roughly 57 percent of the early vote by independents in 2012 and 20 percent of the total vote that year by unaffiliated Iowans.

Iowa’s independents favor Democratic candidates for president and U.S. Senate, according to several recent polls (see here, here, here, and here). So if the bulk of them vote on November 3, Republicans will have a steeper hill to climb to overcome the Democrats’ absentee ballot advantage.

4. Democrats are not merely “cannibalizing” their reliable voters.

Because the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted so many Americans to vote early, some analysts have speculated that early voters don’t represent net gains for Democrats. Rather, they reflect a shift by reliable voters from election day to absentee voting.

That’s not entirely true, according to data from TargetSmart’s TargetEarly 2020 website, led by Democratic political strategist Tom Bonier.

TargetSmart’s analysis of early voting shows that of the Iowans who had cast ballots through October 20, an estimated 16.2 percent (92,003 people) did not vote in the 2016 election.

About 26,012 of those were first-time voters. The rest were infrequent voters.

5. The age breakdown of Iowa’s early votes also looks like good news for Democrats.

Most Iowans who had voted by October 20 were over age 50.

Senior citizens favor Joe Biden over Donald Trump, according to recent Iowa polling. And voters age 65 or over have already cast 273,069 ballots, which is 115 percent of the 236,095 who voted early in 2016 and 67 percent of the total vote from seniors (406,478) in that election. It’s also 126 percent of the 216,502 Iowa seniors who voted early in 2012 and 73 percent of the total over 65 vote (371,309) that year.

Iowa Democrats will be able to focus much of the late GOTV on younger voters, who are less reliable participants. The large early vote makes that task somewhat easier by shrinking the “universe” who need to be contacted on or shortly before November 3.

Traditionally, high turnout scenarios are thought to benefit Democrats. But the best chance for Iowa Republicans now would involve an enormous election day turnout, which could help them overcome their deficit in absentee ballots. The certified results from 2016 show that Trump received 800,983 (50.63 percent) of the 1,581,371 ballots cast in Iowa. He lost the early vote by 331,964 to 270,900, but more than made up for it on election day.

Signs point to greater interest in this year’s presidential election, but we can only guess how many more voters will participate, compared to 2016. Republicans would probably have a better chance with a total vote exceeding 1.7 million, rather than turnout in the 1.6 million range. On the other hand, if independents break for Democratic candidates, even very high turnout probably wouldn’t save Trump or Senator Joni Ernst.

Links to Bleeding Heartland posts with tables showing daily early vote totals:

Iowa absentee ballot numbers in the 2020 general election

Iowa absentee ballot numbers in the 2016 general election

Iowa absentee ballot numbers in the 2012 general election

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Appendix 1: Early vote totals as of October 20, 2020 (two weeks before election day)

Absentee ballots requested by Iowa voters as of October 20, 2020
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party	other	total
IA-01	108,386	58,170	41,226	811	208,593
IA-02	111,131	57,737	40,488	750	210,106
IA-03	118,084	67,134	42,681	1,107	229,006
IA-04	74,769	73,951	30,531	616	179,867
statewide	412,370	256,992	154,926	3,284	827,572

Absentee ballots received by Iowa county auditors as of October 20, 2020
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party	other	total
IA-01	84,434	40,395	26,304	492	151,625
IA-02	83,086	39,763	24,968	465	148,282
IA-03	82,557	41,961	23,265	592	148,375
IA-04	54,274	49,001	18,971	380	122,626
statewide	304,351	171,120	93,508	1,929	570,908

Appendix 2: Early vote totals as of October 25, 2016 (two weeks before election day)

Absentee ballots requested by Iowa voters as of October 25, 2016
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	55,030	37,110	29,497	365	126,533
IA-02	59,500	38,297	28,353	383	126,533
IA-03	57,357	45,154	23,709	369	126,589
IA-04	39,335	48,215	24,393	303	112,246
statewide	211,222	168,776	105,952	1,420	487,370

Absentee ballots received by Iowa county auditors as of October 25, 2016
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	37,473	22,894	16,920	204	77,491
IA-02	42,061	24,599	17,231	237	84,128
IA-03	38,659	27,500	13,446	210	79,815
IA-04	26,497	28,602	14,283	191	69,573
statewide	144,690	103,595	61,880	842	311,007

Appendix 3: Early vote totals as of October 23, 2012 (two weeks before election day)

Absentee ballots requested by Iowa voters as of October 23, 2012

Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters
IA-01	63,954	37,114	37,732
IA-02	68,665	39,134	37,189
IA-03	62,038	45,315	29,169
IA-04	46,412	46,419	28,333
statewide	241,069	167,982	132,423

Absentee ballots received by Iowa county auditors as of October 23, 2012

Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters
IA-01	46,139	26,188	22,968
IA-02	50,713	28,285	23,489
IA-03	44,357	31,830	17,640
IA-04	33,810	32,413	17,830
statewide	175,019	118,716	81,927

Top image: Iowans waiting to vote early in person at the Polk County elections office on October 16. Cropped from a photo Polk County Democrats chair Sean Bagniewski posted on Twitter.