Posted on 03/07/2016 3:11:55 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
I've never been a fan of early voting. Those who vote early do not have the opportunity to include in their deliberations late breaking events or campaign developments that might cause them to re-examine their decision.
I've always believed we're better off having everybody vote on the same day. That way everybody has access to the same information before they pull the lever. (Absentee ballots, of course, should be made available to those who cannot show up on election day due to travel or other unavoidable complications.)
An illustration of this comes from the Louisiana primary on Saturday. Donald Trump barely defeated Ted Cruz in the Bayou State 41%-38%. But it turns out Trump may owe his margin of victory to early voters.
This is because Cruz stormed back on election day, as the Washington Post points out in a piece by Philip Bump entitled Ted Cruz's huge surge in Election Day voting in Louisiana.
Bump compares voting data from early voters with data from day-of voters, and concludes "[T]his looks like the state of Louisiana bailed on Marco Rubio in favor of Ted Cruz."
Nate Silver has additional details. Here were Louisiana's election day vote totals:
Cruz 40.9%
Trump 40.5%
Rubio 9.4%
Kasich 6.8%
But here were the early vote totals:
Trump 46.7%
Cruz 22.9%
Rubio 20.1%
Kasich 3.7%
In other words, Cruz closed a 20 point gap in a matter of days, and actually won the vote on election day. Wrote The Hayride, "Ted Cruz erased a 20-point gap in Louisiana in less than a week and actually won the Election Day vote. That's absolutely incredible."
And Cruz picked up a large amount of his support from Marco Rubio, who tanked on Saturday, and produced a vote total less than half his absentee totals.
What happened? The most plausible explanation is that the debate happened. The last debate happened on the Thursday night before the Saturday election, and by most accounts both Trump and Rubio had bad nights. Trump was defensive all night long, changed his mind on immigration in the middle of the debate, and doubled down on ordering war crimes (only to reverse field the next day).
Rubio likewise had a substandard outing while Cruz refused to mud wrestle with either Trump or Rubio and kept the focus on substantive policy differences between him and his opponents.
Rubio had a perfectly terrible day on Saturday. He could not get out of the teens anywhere, and didn't even crack the 10% threshold in Maine to qualify for even a single delegate.
Cruz won stunning and decisive victories in Kansas (48-23) and Maine (46-33) and lost narrowly in Louisiana and Kentucky (36-32). According to NBC, he has closed the delegate gap with Trump to well under a hundred (392-305).
Bottom line: the bottom seems to have fallen out of the Rubio campaign, Trump's sheen is starting to tarnish, and Cruz seems to be peaking at just the right time. This campaign is far from over.
Can’t do either. So I’m just prayin’.
Tomorrow night will tell us more
I could link you to Cruz campaign videos. What’s your point, hon?
My prediction: Phillip Bump and Nate Silver will be labeled establishment hacks in a few minutes.
Those numbers are not correct.
Trump 124,818 41.4%
Cruz 113,949 37.8%
http://www.cnn.com/election/primaries/states/la/Rep
Time will tell us with certainty.
Trump’s Stupid Thursday made Saturday a Super Cruzday.
I think when faced with the names on election day, people mark the sanest candidate compared to what they tell pollsters after witnessing the last debate.
Speculative at best...sounds like Rubio declaring himself the winner in all the races, just because...
No doubt, Cruz has done very well, and I have no doubt will continue to do well...but this is “inside baseball” type stuff that just is a feel good. The result is the result. 1 more vote than the next guy gets you the W, and in winner takes all states, that’s YUGE.
Can people on all sides please stop making these stupid posts.
We get it! In order to try to frame the other side perceived comments, you rush in and state “X people to (insert negative here) in 3...2...1”
News flash: Both sides have people that do it. Welcome to a discussion forum!
You need to read the article carefully. The numbers above are comparing the percentages of votes cast early and the percentages of votes cast on Saturday. The point being that Trump was leading by double-digits in votes cast early, but actually lost in the votes cast Saturday. The numbers you list were the finale percentages including both early votes and votes cast on Saturday.
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I think you are right. In the privacy of the voting booth, sanity takes over. Carnival time was fun, now it's time to get serious.
RenewAmerica is hardly Red State or Conservative Treehouse.
Yes.
You’ve been here since 2005. We have had many a discussion during all that time.
Ever recall people like Levin and Rush being called “establishment RINO hacks” and irrelevant at the level they are this election cycle?
So in the big scheme of life what is it supposed to mean?
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