=======================
=======================
West Virginia? I thought we had that? of course..it ain’t over till it’s over...
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.
I think the comparison should be made over 2006 rather than 2008 as that was a presidential election year. There are larger turnouts during presidential years as opposed to non presidential years. The same trend may be present in those years but I think it would be meaningful.
Texas data for the top 15 counties indicates that the total will be up over 2006 but will fall significantly short of the 2008 number. That trend is typical for years back in Texas that I have looked at.
Example Texas has just over 13% turnout of early voting/mail in ballots during non presidential years 2006 and 2002. Whereas it had over 42% in 2008.