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A board indicates the early voting schedule for the 1st Congressional District Democratic primary in Bloomfield on August 3, 2026. Credit: Julia Levine / CT Mirror

Nearly 55,000 Connecticut voters cast their ballots early and another 12,410 cast absentee ballots for Tuesday’s primaries — including 61,846 of nearly 790,000 active Democrats, or about 7.8%.

Fewer towns have GOP primaries to vote in, but 5,351 Republicans cast early or absentee ballots for their General Assembly or Congressional primaries.

Bloomfield had the highest percentage of early voters, followed by West Hartford.

Towns in the northwest and suburbs of Hartford also saw returns above average.

House District 50, which covers a clump of towns from Mansfield to Woodstock, saw an increased percentage of active Republicans and Democrats early voting, which might be a bellwether for higher turnout overall.

This is the first Connecticut gubernatorial primary to offer the option of early voting.

The last gubernatorial primary, when Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim challenged Ned Lamont in 2018, saw 212,543 total ballots cast.

Angela is CT Mirror’s first AI Data Reporter / Product Developer. She is focused on developing AI methods to improve the CT Mirror’s research and reporting, using categorization, text-parsing, and other emerging technologies to provide even wider news coverage across the state of Connecticut. After fact-checking for CNN, Angela produced polls for the AP-NORC Center and worked on the 2024 VoteCast election model. She holds a B.A from Harvard and is originally from London, England.