A Record 57 Million Americans Have Already Voted, and Polls Are Still Closed

America didn't wait for Election Day. A record 57 million people cast ballots early this year, according to Bloomberg, blowing past anything the country has seen before polls officially open for in-person voting.

The partisan split is lopsided in the states that keep score. Across 27 early-voting states that track voter registration by party, roughly 43% of early votes came from registered Democrats, while about 32% came from registered Republicans, per Bloomberg. That gap will be the number to watch all night.

The caveat matters: not every state logs party affiliation, so the national early-vote picture is harder to read than those 27 states suggest. Early votes also don't predict final results, they just tell you who showed up first.

The clock is now the story. The first polls close at 6 PM ET, and the last ones shut down at 1 AM ET, meaning results will trickle out over seven hours and could stretch well past that as ballots get counted.

The Kobeissi Letter, which flagged the Bloomberg figure, is promising real-time analysis as the day unfolds. With 57 million votes already banked, the runway for surprises is short.