It’s fine to watch the polls (more entertainment value than anything), but keep an eye on the early and absentee voting totals in Florida and elsewhere. Bottom line: Republican numbers are running well ahead of 2016. In Florida, for example, when you combine absentee and early voting totals to date, GOP has a lead of 59,000 votes. At the same point in 2016, GOP lead was only 40,000.
Traditionally, Republicans run up a solid majority in absentee voting, while Democrats do better with the early vote. But so far this year, we’re not seeing it. In fact, Democrats in Florida did not take a lead in early voting until yesterday, with a massive, statewide “souls to the polls” push that focuses on African-American churches. I believe yesterday was the final Sunday the polls will be open in Florida, so that element of the GOTV effort is over and done.
One more note: the Florida panhandle, a Republican bastion (except for two counties) is under-reporting so far, due to the impact of Hurricane Michael. But upwards of 2,000 voting locations in that area are opening this week, to give residents a chance to vote. That will help Republicans.
If you’re not following Larry Schweikart on Twitter, you should. He’s a retired University of Dayton history professor who wrote “A Patriot’s History of the United States,” a superb text that’s actually being used in hundreds of colleges around the country. For the past couple of election cycles, Dr. Schweikart has been monitoring and posting absentee/early voting totals as a harbinger of what will happen on election night. His track record is very good.
You’re not hearing anything about absentee/early voting from the MSM because the data in many states reflects a very energize GOP base and lots of independents voting Republican as well.
4 put of the 8 counties effected by Hurricane Michael have yet to report any numbers which will be most certainly heavy Republican.
Thanks!