Harris holds 2:1 lead in early voting – as poll goers cite abortion as a main issue

Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly has a nearly 2 to 1 lead over Donald Trump among voters who have already cast their ballots, according to a recent poll.

USA TODAY/Suffolk University released a poll that shows Harris leading Trump by 63 percent to 34 percent, nearly a 2 to 1 ratio, among individuals who have already voted.

When it comes to voters who plan to wait until Election Day to vote, that number turns around, with 52 percent saying they'll vote for Trump and 35 percent saying they'll vote for Harris.

Some states have already started early mail-in and in-person voting. According to the poll, one in seven respondents have said they've already cast a ballot. One-third said they plan to vote early, and that group favors Harris, 52 percent to 39 percent.

Nearly half of the respondents said they plan to wait to vote on Election Day.

Overall, Harris is leading Trump by an extremely thin margin, 45 percent to 44 percent, according to the poll results.

The poll was taken by landline and cellphone between October 14-18, and included 1,000 respondents, with a 3.1 plus or minus margin of error.

One in five respondents who said they've already voted cited "abortion rights/women's rights" as their most important issue, with the second being the economy and inflation.

David Paleologos, the director of Suffolk's Political Research Center, told USA TODAY that the early voting totals favoring Harris is helpful for Democrats, as it gives her more time to win over Election Day voters and it shows her with a strong lead heading into November.

Democrats in the 2020 election were about twice as likely as Republicans to vote by mail or to vote early, largely due to Trump's baseless claims that those methods of voting were less secure than casting a ballot on Election Day.

The GOP has since flipped its position on the issue and is encouraging its voters to head to the polls early.

Georgia shattered its previous turnout records for early voting since the ballots opened on Tuesday. The state has seen more than 1.4 million residents vote early since the polls opened. More than 1.3 million ballots were cast in person, and more than 80,000 absentee ballots have been cast, according to Fox News.

It's difficult to draw too many conclusions about the state of the overall election from early voting, especially because early voting tends to skew toward older voters. According to Election Lab, in the nine states that report the age of early voters, 49 percent were over the age of 65, and only 16 percent were under 40-years-old, New York Magazine reports.