Tomorrow is primary day in Arizona and voters from both parties will be heading to the polls to choose their nominees for a variety of races — from who will be in the running to be our next U.S. Senator to who will square off for Congress all the way down to who will become the candidates for mayor in some Valley cities.
But, a lot of voters will not be heading to the polls tomorrow — because they’ve already voted. In fact, more than 800,000 Democratic and Republican voters in Arizona already returned their primary ballots. Sam Almy joined The Show to tell us everything we know about those early ballot returns.
Almy is a data analyst for Uplift Campaigns, a Democratic political strategist who also tracks early ballots.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: Good morning there, Sam, thanks for coming on.
SAM ALMY: Thank you for having me, Lauren. I appreciate it.
GILGER: OK, so tell us the big picture stuff first. Like what does turnout look like so far? How many ballots have been cast?
ALMY: So right now, this is as of Thursday morning, I'm still waiting on Friday's data for Maricopa County. We have 841,000 total returns statewide. That puts turnout at around 21, 20.5 percent.
GILGER: OK, OK. What do you estimate turnout could look like in the end after voters go to the poll tomorrow? Do we have a good sense of that at this point?
ALMY: I have a pretty good sense of it. This election is actually turning out, as far as turnout wise, very similar to 2020, 2022. So I'm estimating turnout in the low 30%. That's what we saw the last couple cycles. So we're probably gonna get around 1.2, 1.3 million ballots in the next two days.
GILGER: It sounds like a lot, but still, you know, in the, in the 30 percent there, let's talk about what we know about those early ballots that have already been returned. Give us the general breakdown. Where, what parties are they from? What parts of the state? What do we know?
ALMY: Well, they're, they're coming from, from all over, obviously, Maricopa and Pima make up over 80% of the ballots. That's pretty typical. That's where all the registered voters are. On the Democratic side, we have 372,000 ballots turned in, about 30 31,000 of those are from independent voters, or 8%. And on the GOP side, we have 460,000 ballots turned in and 40,000 are from independents, which again is about 8.5% of all ballots.
GILGER: And Democratic turnout it sounds like is a tad lower than it has been in the last couple of elections. Is that still true?
ALMY: It is, it is down about 1% from 2022. That's actually something that I've been looking at because, you know, there was a thought that there would be a little bit of enthusiasm gap for the Democrats. Down 1% in a primary. That's, that's something to, to look at but not be overly concerned for, for a general election.
GILGER: Were you surprised? It wasn't lower?
ALMY: Yeah, a little bit. Yes, I'm generally pessimistic. So having this right on track with 2020, 2022 is really encouraging for Democrats.
GILGER: So then does it matter, Sam, you think that Democrats just changed the top of the ticket after many voters had already cast those primary ballots like those, you know, presidential candidates obviously aren't on this ballot. But does it change that enthusiasm gap? That calculation?
ALMY: I, I don't know if we're gonna see that for this primary election specifically, but it certainly does change the enthusiasm on the Democratic side. You know, I have a lot of anecdata right now. Social media is enjoyable to be on. There's lots of memes and such around Vice President Harris. That's always nice to see. Things like the assassination on Trump has taken a back seat to this news. And in addition to that, all the messaging that the GOP had at their convention against Joe Biden is now lost.
GILGER: The swings of the races. You also track things like voter age in early ballots. What are we seeing so far?
ALMY: Unsurprisingly this is very similar for, for most early voting primary or general election the voters are older. I think right now, we're looking at 60% of all voters of all ballots cast are 65 plus. This is pretty typical to see. It's gonna get a little bit younger in the next few days. Generally the 45 and under go vote, they either drop off their ballots at the polls or simply vote in person.
GILGER: Yeah. Does that change significantly when it comes to the general election as well? Like what, what is the kind of typical profile of a primary voter?
ALMY: You're gonna see something very similar,, especially with early vote, because these people are the informed electorate. They voted before. We like to call them four by fours, meaning they voted for the last four elections. They usually turn out early, they know who they're voting for. They don't wanna, they just want to cast their ballot and be done with it. It's the undecided, the lower turnout voters that tend to be a little bit younger. They will come out in the week three and week four of voting.
GILGER: Yeah. Yeah. Last minute or so here. I want to drill down on a few of the legislative districts that are being closely watched this primary cycle. Like, are you seeing anything surprising in some of those districts where there will be some tight primary races?
ALMY: Nothing, nothing particular for, for legislative districts. I know I have my eye on the LD17 race down in Tucson with Senator Wadsack vs Leach on the Republican side. That turnout is about even with 2022, maybe even a little bit higher. So that's interesting to see those new voters coming into that race.
GILGER: Last question for you. What, what does all of this say so far? You think about where we will be on general Election Day? Like, are there trends you're watching for things that are sort of canaries in the coal mine in terms of term turnout or party advantage heading into November?
ALMY: That's a great question. One of the things that I'm seeing right now is that Republicans have returned to having a ballot advantage during the early voting period in 2020 and 2022. We saw that the Dems were leading in, in returns despite being third in registration. Prior to 2020 Republicans had led virtually throughout all of early voting. We're seeing a return to that in, in the primary here. And I'm curious as to see if that trend holds for the general election as well.
