Trump Votes Early and In Person in Florida as Midterm Clock Ticks Down

President Donald Trump cast his ballot for the midterm elections on Saturday, voting early and in person at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections office alongside First Lady Melania Trump. The couple arrived in the late afternoon, according to pool reports, and the president told reporters that everything was good as he went inside. Asked whether he had voted along party lines, he answered that he very much had, and he was later seen wearing an I Voted sticker.

The in-person vote drew notice because of the president's long-running criticism of mail-in ballots. Trump has repeatedly attacked mail voting, making unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud, and has pushed for restrictions on the practice. Yet he has also used it himself: he voted by mail in Florida's March special election for a state House seat and again in the state's Republican primary in August, a contrast that has drawn scrutiny from critics throughout the year.

The president was in South Florida, where his Mar-a-Lago residence is located, for a weekend that mixed campaigning with a brief break. He arrived in Palm Beach on Friday after a campaign appearance in Fort Myers, where he praised Republican candidates in the midterms at an event attended by Senators Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds, Representative Brian Mast, and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. On Saturday he told reporters he had spent about an hour hitting golf balls at Trump International Golf Club without playing a full round.

Early voting in Palm Beach County for the November 3 general election began on October 19 and is scheduled to continue through November 1, according to the county's elections office. Across the country, election officials have reported steady early turnout as voters take advantage of in-person early voting and mail ballots in a midterm that will decide control of Congress.

Florida was not the only place where voting was underway. In New Jersey, early in-person voting for the midterms opened on Saturday and runs through November 1, with polls open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and until 6 p.m. on Sundays at designated locations in each county. New Jersey first offered early in-person voting in 2021, and the option has grown steadily since: last year's early voting period drew more than 740,000 ballots, and the 2024 presidential election set a record in the state with nearly 1.2 million early in-person votes. Officials say voters who requested mail-in ballots should return those ballots rather than voting on a machine, or they will be limited to a provisional ballot.

After voting, the president's motorcade headed to the airport, and Trump flew to Perry, Georgia, for an evening rally supporting Republican candidates there. The trip illustrated the dual role Trump is playing in the closing days of the campaign: both a voter in Florida and the Republican Party's chief campaigner. The November 3 elections will determine whether Republicans retain control of Congress during the final two years of his presidency. Pool reports said the motorcade left the polling location at 4:36 p.m. and arrived at the airport three minutes later.