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Posted on 10/24/2010 11:32:47 PM PDT by freespirited
Everyone in the political world is trying to figure out who is going to win on Election Day, so what better to whet your appetite than some data from states about early voting.
This material comes from a professor at George Mason University in Virginia who specializes in early voting, as Dr. Michael McDonald runs a web site that posts early voting data, some of which includes a breakdown by party of who is voting.
For example in Florida, almost 800,000 votes are already in, and when you look at the party breakdown, you see that 52.8% of the ballots are in from Republicans to 33.7% for Democrats.
I don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize that GOP votes are coming in at a 19% higher clip than the Democrats in Florida.
Go back two years, when the Democrats did very well in Florida with Barack Obama at the top of the ballot, and you will see that Democrats had an 8% edge in early voting in the Sunshine State.
So if the current numbers hold on, then the GOP would have a 27-point swing in their favor in early voting numbers.
Does that sound like something we've been calling the "enthusiasm gap?"
Granted, just because one party votes doesn't mean that party is getting all those votes. But McDonald says it's not too far off.
"People who self-identify with a particular party, who register with a particular party, are much more likely to vote for that party," McDonald said in an interview.
"It gives you some clues, but of course, it's not a definitive end-all to what the election outcome is going to be," he added.
Some states don't publicly post such data, so McDonald has been able to figure out a number of ways to get access to it, like in Georgia, which has had over 300,000 votes come in so far via early voting and absentee.
Other states publish a bevy of information, like California, which makes you wish they just ran a scoreboard of all votes every day, so we could watch this dern election like a football scoreboard for a full month.
As for some data from key states, Republicans are doing well in Colorado, where 41.8% of early votes have come in from the GOP, versus 36.5% for Democrats and 21% for Independents.
Compare that to 2008, when Democrats had 37.7% of the early votes, Republicans had 35.9% and Independents were at 26.4%.
In Nevada, where Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is fighting hard against Republican Sharron Angle, Republicans have 42.5% of the early votes to 42.4% for Democrats, with Independents at 15%.
In that state, there are two big counties, Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, and Washoe County, which is where Reno is located.
In Clark County, Democrats have the edge in early votes at 46.5% to 37.8% for the GOP. In 2008, the spread was 52-30% for the Dems.
In Washoe County, Republicans have the edge in early votes at 46.2% to 40% for the Democrats. In 2008, Democrats had the edge in early votes from Washoe County, 47.1-35.3%.
As for bright spots for Democrats, in Iowa they have a 45.9-38.1% edge in early votes.
And in Ohio, while there are not numbers broken down by party affiliation, big numbers of votes are already in from two Democratic strongholds, Cuyahoga County around Cleveland and Franklin County around Columbus.
Put this site on your favorites and keep checking it over the next eight days. I love stats, and this is a good one:
http://is.gd/ggOOv
Good night, Harry.
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Are you kidding? That’s not nearly enough to clear the 5% democrat voter fraud gap.
West Virginia? I thought we had that? of course..it ain’t over till it’s over...
Good Post.
Thanks.
These numbers look good overall, but I can’t understand why some states would have a Dem edge in a supposed Republican tsunami. The only thing I can think of is these could be heavy union states where they have a strong early GOTV effort that is intentionally designed to skew these numbers and give the appearance of enthusiasm on the Dem side.
It’s either that or the wave may not be as big as we had hoped :(
Dang. Nothing from Hawaii. We’ve got at least a couple of very close races, early voting, and a ton of annoying Barack Obama ads.
Trying to make sense of the numbers is like navigating in the fog without a compass. We have no idea how many democrats are voting Republican or what the independents are doing. We also don’t know that the early turnout won’t be offset by lower numbers on election day.
More and more districts are in play every day and that tells me the wave is building. Don’t let anyone be fooled by phony polling in the last week. If voters use the healthcare plan and the stimulus votes to determine who they are voting for, all predictions and bets are off and some previously unpolled and “safe” democrats will be looking for jobs.
i’m not as optimistic. We need to add a few percentage points to the democrat side for fraud
I was looking at North Carolina. On the stats for the 2008 early voting, there’s stats about early voting 2004 North Carolina.
This year the Republicans in North Carolina are doing 5 points better than in 2004. George Bush in 2004 was the best Republican performance Presidential since Reagan in 1984.
There was a very tight linkage between party turnout and presidential performance 2004 and 2008.
Obama outperformed Kerry net 12.5 points.
Early voting Dems were up 2.8 Republicans were down 7.2 Indys up 4.4.
If there was a presidential race this year - Republican 59% - Democrat 41%.
North Carolina
56 - 43.6 bush kerry - 12.4 (5.1) = 17.5
49.7-49.38 obama mccain -
2008 2004 2010
Dem 51.4% 48.6% 44.3%
Rep 30.2% 37.4% 38.2%
None 18.5% 14.1% 17.4%
Best Results in North Carolina since 1984 Reagan Landslide.
Republicans like to vote on election day.
So, the early voting should go the Democrats even in a GOP tsunaumi.
Very unlikely, GOP voters are very anxious to vote, so it looks like the numbers could equal that of a Presidential year.
Iowa will be IOUA if they lose the freebie farm welfare and actually have to grow crops.
Its by registration. Its not telling you who someone actually voted for.
“So if the current numbers hold on, then the GOP would have a 27-point swing in their favor in early voting numbers.”
That is assuming that the electronic voting machine process is not rigged. It would be nice to see the actual vote totals. I bet we never will see them in stand alone form.
...”We need to add a few percentage points to the democrat side for fraud.”...
This is very concerning..What would happen if it became obvious to the people that widespread fraud had occurred all over the nation, literally stealing the government?
ping #10
IOWA? Would someone please explain what is going on in this prairie state!
If you know your Huckleberry Finn, you know that was the reaction of the people in Arkansas to being defrauded and presumed upon.
I simply think of these mid-western farm states as highly conservative with strong family values. It seems like they would be highly offended by Obama and the Congress's disdain of traditional American values. Am I misreading the populace? Or is it like someone says above, that it has to do with the farm subsidies?
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