Early numbers in Connecticut show Black and Hispanic residents are voting twice as much as they did in 2024, according to an analysis done by Connecticut Democrats.
They were surprised by their analysis of the first week of early voting up to Tuesday, said David Kostek, the party’s interim data director.
“I was frankly stunned to see the rates at which Black and Hispanic voters are coming to vote early in Connecticut this year,” Kostek said.
Black voters are voting early at more than twice the rate of 2024, while Hispanic voters are voting just a little less, but still nearly double the previous election, he said.
This could reflect concerns about threats to voting on Election Day, said Bilal Sekou, a political scientist at Hartford University.
“Especially on the side of the Democrats. It has galvanized a lot of people to show up and to make sure that they vote because they feel like democracy is at stake right now,”
Sekou said.
Overall, early voting numbers in Connecticut are 3-to-1 in favor of Democrats.
Blacks and Hispanics are more than 20% of the nearly 400,000 early voters.
