In Peoria, I went to two voting precincts, once with my wife and once with my daughter. Both were crowded with a line that took 20-30 minutes to get through.
My daughter voted in a retirement home and there were lots of people in wheelchairs and walkers.
In line now, sort mid-morning line. About 20 ahead of me.
Turnout seems to be WAY up. I had a half-hour wait to vote this morning in the northeast Houston suburbs. There was almost no wait at the same time of day in 2016 (though there were more workers and machines that year), and almost no wait in 2014.
This is in line with the early voting numbers. In the largest Texas counties, apparently about 40% of registered voters voted early. That is higher than the TOTAL turnout for any mid-term election in Texas since 1994.
My precinct is about 50-50. It went very slightly for Hillary in 2016. I am in what is considered a “safe” Republican Congressional district, TX-02, and Dan Crenshaw is expected to win handily (especially after the free publicity from SNL), but the Democrats seem to be putting a surprising amount of resources into the race.
If I had to venture a guess based on who was in line with me, I’d say the turnout favors Republicans. The line was quiet and no one was talking politics, which suggests to me that I was mostly in line with Republicans, who are usually less likely to blab about their political views among strangers than Democrats. Also, for whatever it’s worth, the voters in line were overwhelmingly white, and the precinct is only about 30-40% white. Of course, this all could just have to do with the time of day I went—these were mostly people heading in to work.
One thing is for sure: I think we can throw out all of the polls. Based on the early-voting numbers and the turnout I saw this morning, I wouldn’t be surprised if we hit 70% turnout for this election, which would be unprecedented. Pollsters apply turnout models to the data when they come up with results, and there’s no model for this.
I have a gut feeling that someone’s going to be in for an unpleasant surprise this evening. I’ve been fairly optimistic to date, but I think all bets are off now.
Seemed like my polling place was much busier than 2016 I’m on the border of L.A and Ventura county. Tough to know if it was the surge due to people voting before going into work. I believe I voted around the same time last election