Democrats expand New Jersey early voting advantage

Friday turnout

Registered Democrats cast 33,803 in-person ballots Friday, while registered Republicans cast 20,564. That amounted to 48% of Friday’s in-person turnout for Democrats and 29% for Republicans.

On the comparable day in 2025, 32,792 registered Democrats and 27,982 registered Republicans voted in person. Democratic participation therefore rose 3.1% from that day, while Republican participation fell 26.5%.

Overall in-person turnout also declined. A total of 70,979 New Jersey voters cast ballots in person Friday, compared with 80,288 on the corresponding day last year. Republicans had slightly surpassed their comparable 2025 turnout on Thursday before Friday’s decline.

Seven-day totals

Through seven days of in-person early voting, 246,768 registered Democrats and 140,112 registered Republicans had cast ballots. That put the Democratic advantage among those two registration groups at 106,656 ballots.

When vote-by-mail ballots reported through Thursday are included, at least 1,023,635 New Jersey voters had participated. That total included 594,076 registered Democrats, 241,031 registered Republicans, and 188,528 unaffiliated or third-party voters.

The combined early-voting advantage for registered Democrats over registered Republicans was 353,045 ballots, up from 339,806 on Thursday. Those numbers describe party registration only. A voter registered with one party may vote for candidates from another party where the ballot permits, so registration totals are not candidate vote counts.

Voting schedule

In-person early voting was scheduled to continue until 8 p.m. Saturday. Sunday’s listed voting hours were 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., giving voters another opportunity to cast ballots before the early in-person period ended.