The Wisconsin Elections Commission numbers landed this week and the spreadsheet crowd started declaring winners and loswer. As of October 19, absentee applications sat at 371,014, down 20.6 percent from the same point in 2022. Returned ballots were at 173,164, down 27.3 percent. The gap is larger in Democratic strongholds. Madison applications are off more than 30 percent. Milwaukee and Dane County returns are lagging in the mid-30s. Republican areas are softer, but they are not flat.
On paper that looks like an opening for Republicans. Fewer mail ballots in Madison and Milwaukee has historically meant tighter Democratic margins. The left already has its explanation ready and I am starting to believe it. Dane County and Madison clerks told Wisconsin Public Radio the drop is driven by lost faith in the Postal Service. Voters are supposedly holding ballots and waiting for in-person early voting because they do not trust the mail under the current administration.That story is convenient but also incomplete. The honest answer is that nobody has a clean benchmark for what any of this means in 2026.
We have three prior cycles that look nothing like each other. 2018 was the last midterm before mass vote-by-mail became a Democratic strategy. Absentee volume was lower and the rules were tighter. 2022 was the tail end of COVID. A lot of people who got used to the mail ballot during the pandemic still used it even as the emergency faded. 2024 was a presidential year with maximum intensity and a completely different electorate. Don’t even get me started on 2020, what a nightmare. Now we are in a midterm with a new set of variables and no pandemic residual to explain the behavior. Anyone treating the current numbers as a direct sequel to 2022 is guessing.
Democrats spent years telling their voters the mail was the safest way to cast a ballot. Now some of those same voters appear to be hesitating. It does not automatically mean lower overall turnout. Those voters could show up in person this week or on Election Day. They could also stay home. We will not know which until we see more in-person early voting numbers which start today.
That is the part the spreadsheet crowd keeps skipping. Mail returns are only one slice of the early vote. In-person absentee voting starts tomorrow in most places. In 2022 a huge share of the early total came from people who walked into the clerk’s office rather than dropping an envelope in the box. If those in-person numbers explode over the next ten days and the mail lag disappears, the current deficit means almost nothing. If the in-person numbers stay soft too, then the enthusiasm gap is real. Until those numbers land, any confident prediction is fan fiction.
There is a narrative available for everyone who wants one. Republicans can point at the Madison and Milwaukee drops and declare the Democratic machine is sputtering. Democrats can point at the Postal Service story and claim their voters are simply being more careful. Both sides can find a county that fits the preferred story.
Do not put much stock in these numbers until the in-person early vote has been running for at least a week. Everything before that is just a conversation starter.
