43 Million Americans Have Already Voted, and Trump Can Hear the Verdict Coming

A ballot is the quietest sentence in a democracy. It's written in private and cast in a sealed envelope. Then it waits. And once it's counted, nobody gets to argue with it anymore, not even a president. In America, more than 43 million of those sentences are already waiting just days before the election. Almost 10 million more than four years ago. They're piling up in election offices while Donald Trump is still traveling around the country, talking as though he can change a verdict that, in many places, has already been delivered. On November 3, Americans will elect a new Congress. His name won't appear anywhere on the ballot. But the election is still about him.

And things are looking bad for him. Very bad.

Around 43.7 million Americans have already voted early. In states that release this information, 41.4 percent of those voters are registered Democrats, 32.4 percent are Republicans, and 26.2 percent are independents or registered with other parties.

That puts registered Democrats 9 percentage points ahead of registered Republicans among early voters in those states. Since party registration doesn't necessarily determine how someone votes, these aren't official election results yet. The actual breakdown of the vote will become known on November 3.

The latest polls give Democrats the kind of nationwide lead every party in power dreads, averaging around eight points, and as much as nine among people who say they're certain to vote. Just 32 percent of those surveyed think Trump is doing a good job. Nearly three out of four Americans believe the cost of living is heading in the wrong direction. Gas has gotten more expensive, too, since the American strikes on Iran. No speech can talk away the number on a gas pump.

What's revealing is what the polls don't show. When it comes to the economy, Americans have barely more confidence in Democrats than Republicans. The gap there is narrow. Voters aren't so much moving toward Democrats as they're moving away from Trump. The most dangerous kind of rejection is the kind that doesn't require any love for the alternative, because no promise can easily make it go away. Granted, a president with bad numbers hasn't necessarily been beaten. But he's governing against a country that's increasingly refusing to follow his lead.

Then there's something you can't order people to feel. Enthusiasm. Nearly half of Democratic supporters say they're highly motivated, compared with fewer than a third of Republicans. Anger can carry a movement a long way. Disappointment stays home on Election Day.

Nowhere is that clearer than Texas. A state where Democrats haven't won a statewide election in more than 30 years is seeing a rush to the polls unlike anything it's known before. Early voting is up 50 percent from four years ago, with more than 6.3 million ballots cast by Wednesday. In the greater Houston area, a Democratic stronghold, turnout is up by more than half compared with that same point four years ago. In the Senate race, Democrat James Talarico is facing Attorney General Ken Paxton, and the polls swing back and forth from one day to the next, sometimes putting one ahead, sometimes the other. Hundreds of millions of dollars have poured into this campaign. Governor Greg Abbott is also facing a challenge from Democrat Gina Hinojosa. Trump has traveled to Texas three times in a single month.

A president who keeps showing up in a state his party considered safe is there to put out fires.

South Carolina is even more striking. Trump won the state by nearly 18 points two years ago. Now early voting is running 83 percent above its 2022 level. Voters are choosing a successor to the late Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the president's most loyal allies. Where hardly anyone questioned the outcome until recently, people are now standing in line. The seat left behind by a friend of the president has become a test of whether loyalty outlives the loyal. In a state Trump could reasonably have considered one of his safest possessions, that's a question he wouldn't have had to ask himself a year ago.

The same picture is taking shape across the map. In Kansas, a state Republicans ordinarily don't even have to defend, Pastor Adam Hamilton is polling ahead of Senator Roger Marshall. A Methodist who preaches to thousands every Sunday is appealing to voters who've been told for decades that God and the Republicans are on the same side. Apparently, some of them are listening a little more carefully now. In Maine, Troy Jackson, a former president of the state Senate, is leading longtime Senator Susan Collins, while early voting is up more than 40 percent from 2022. In Alaska, Mary Peltola is close on the heels of incumbent Dan Sullivan, and Michigan and Ohio are leaning toward Democrats. Only Iowa remains a coin toss. Almost everywhere, early voting numbers are surging, by anywhere from a quarter to nearly half.

Of course, no sealed ballot reveals which box has been checked before it's counted. In states that report early voters' party affiliations, around 6.8 million registered Democrats and 5.2 million registered Republicans have voted so far. We won't have a result until Tuesday. The direction is already becoming clear. But people rarely stand in line because they want everything to stay exactly the way it is. In Michigan, voters can cast their ballots early in person statewide for the first time in a midterm election. They gave themselves that right in 2022, through a ballot initiative. While Washington argues over how much democracy a president can tolerate, Michigan voters quietly decided they wanted more of it. Now they're using it.

What's decided Tuesday will reach far beyond an ordinary midterm election. So far, Trump has governed with majorities in both chambers of Congress that don't ask him uncomfortable questions. A Democratic majority in the House could change that. It could launch congressional investigations and subpoena administration officials to testify under oath. It could use the federal budget as leverage. Investigations that have so far crashed against the president's own majority would suddenly have a hearing room and an agenda. And the House could impeach him, because a simple majority is all it takes to bring charges. A different Senate, meanwhile, could block Trump's personnel appointments, including judges and Cabinet secretaries whom his allies have so far waved through without resistance.

That brings us to the question nobody in the White House is asking out loud. Removing a president from office requires a two-thirds vote to convict in the Senate, meaning 67 votes if every senator is present. Republicans currently hold 53 seats there. Democrats are a long way from 67 votes, and even a massive wave wouldn't get them there on its own. They would need Republicans willing to turn against their president. But party loyalty is a calculation that changes with the polls. A senator watching his voters walk away may suddenly discover a conscience he hasn't needed in a long time. The bigger the Republican losses on Tuesday, the harder it could become for some senators to justify their continued loyalty to Trump. Trump knows that. He survived two impeachment trials during his first term, both with a Senate that protected him. A Senate more afraid of its voters than of the president is a different kind of Senate.

For the House of Representatives, nationwide numbers count for less than they seem to promise. Elections are decided in 435 individual districts, and many of those districts have been carefully redrawn over the years to make sure the party in power faces as few surprises as possible. A lead of millions of votes can therefore translate into surprisingly few seats. It isn't fair. But it's legal. A wave has to rise higher than the seawall built to stop it.

Trump will keep talking until Tuesday, about victories nobody has confirmed and polls he doesn't believe. Power survives on the quiet assumption that it will last. Every senator and every government official acts according to how long they believe that assumption will hold. When that certainty begins to crumble, a government rarely falls all at once. First it loses its confidence, then its allies. A president's power begins with his word. It ends where other people begin counting.

The votes will be counted Tuesday. Inside 43 million envelopes, there's already an answer he can no longer take back.