The absentee/early vote thread

[Gass3268]

So basically we will have a better understanding of where things stand in Florida on Monday, but things look good in the swing counties.

[Gass3268]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/early-voting-more-good-signs-for-clinton-in-key-states/2016/10/27/e1fd6334-9c18-11e6-b552-b1f85e484086_story.html

"In Utah, overall ballots are up from 2012, driven by faster gains among voters ages 22 to 49, according to Catalist, a Democratic analytical firm. Republicans barely led in total ballots cast compared to independents, 38.6 percent to 38.5 percent. That could mean that Evan McMullin, a third-party candidate, is drawing support from Republicans unhappy with Trump. Democrats still trail at 19.4 percent, but they’re in an improved position from 2012, when Republicans held a 58 percent to 13 percent lead."


Muffin is holding his ground.

Shocking results there considering Romney being on the ballot in 2012.

[Gass3268]

Texas Tribune has a great early vote tracker that compares county numbers to 2012 and 2008.



https://apps.texastribune.org/texas-early-voting-tracker/?utm_campaign=trib-social&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=1477592335

This is an awesome page....

Running through the numbers looks like there is a major spike in voter turnout in the heavily Democratic strongholds of Dallas, Travis, and El Paso counties, not to mention a pretty decent bump in Harris County, which is not only the largest county in the state, but quite possibly a C +10 County this year, Hidalgo seems to represent a massive surge in the heavily Democratic Rio Grange Valley....

Bexar seems to have a slower increase in total EV numbers than most other urban/suburban counties on the graph, so it will be interesting to see how this trends in what I am expecting to be a +10-12 C county this year...

EVs also appear to be high in traditionally Republican suburban counties of DFW (Tarrant, Collins, and Denton) but this does not necessarily indicate an increase in total Republican vote margins compared to '08 and '12, considering that this could also indicate a significant number of new voter registrations of younger Latinos and Millennials voting Dem, plus defection of college educated Anglos. We'll see what the final outcome is in these counties, but Collins and Denton in particular look ripe for significant defection of traditional Republican leaning voters, and also have a fast growing and educated demographic.

Fort Bend County having this spike is definitely a positive, since it is a county that has been on the "flip list" of Texas suburban counties for quite some time, and has been rapidly trending D. compared to statewide averages.

Regarding Bexar, I suspect military turnout is substantially weaker this year than 2008/12.  The Hampton Roads part of VA is actually down in absentees vs. 2012 right now. 

I do think you are underestimating how Trumpy the DFW suburbs could be, particularly the Ft. Worth side.  We're now seeing polls from Oklahoma with Clinton < Obama after all.

The education levels of Collin (49.4%) and Denton (41.0%) would suggest that it is very different from Oklahoma (23.8%). Also Collin is only 59.39% non-Hispanic white and Denton is 60.87%, Oklahoma is 66.54%.

[Gass3268]

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[Gass3268]

schale's tweets are super-interesting but he seems a little bit vague (i understand that we are going to know much more after this weekend).....in general he says it is fine but not good enough right now.

if the dems overtake the GOP and start banking votes, i guess we can sleep better.

read between the lines, he's ecstatic

This and he's privy to much more information than we are.

[Gass3268]

WBAL Baltimore News
@wbaltv11
Final update per MD State Board of Elections: 125,914 voters checked-in day one of early voting. Entire early voting period in 2012: 107,385

Wow. Shame MD only holds legislative elections during midterms, else this year would probably be a jackpot for Democrats.

Can Dems maximize their map much more in MD?

They lost some seats in 2014.

[Gass3268]

Steve Schale

Here are the totals:

Vote By Mail: 127,298 votes, GOP won (42-37-21), or just under 6K votes
In Person Early Vote: 263,964 votes, Dems won (40-39-21) or just over 3K votes*

This brings us into total votes 2,864,666 with leading GOP up just over 14K votes. (+0.5%)

One other big picture number: There are almost 60,000 more Democrats in Florida with a vote by mail ballot that they have not returned.  In total, about 57.3% of Republican VBM ballot requests have been returned, compared to 52.6% of Democrats.

SIDE NOTE FROM STEVE TO DEMOCRATS:  RETURN YOUR DARN BALLOTS!

Hillsborough

We won both the early vote and the vote by mail tabulations, and now carry a 12,500 vote lead (+6.8%). And keep in mind, Hillsborough has correctly picked 19 of the last 20 Presidents.

I-4
In total for the day, 108,000 votes were cast in the I-4 counties, with D’s winning 41-38-21.
The I-4 counties have contributed nearly 800,000 ballots, or about 28% of all ballots cast in Florida, with Democrats holding a 42.4-37.5% (+38,000) lead.

Broward:  Democrats now lead by 69,900 votes, or 58-23% lead.

Another interesting point he made was that before in person voting started the electorate was 80% white, after 4 days of in person early voting its dropped to 72%.

[Gass3268]

For people concerned about NC, they should really check out NYT Upshots daily projection for NC. It is based on the early vote data and the data they got polling the state. Hillary's lead has gone up since it went live a couple days ago. I think there is going to be a good % of Registered Republicans in South Charlotte and the Raleigh-Durham area that will go for Clinton. You can see it in the map they made from polling data. This wouldn't clearly show up in other polls because I imagine many of those folks no longer self identify as Republicans.

[Gass3268]

2012 FL exit polls had it at 67-13-17, so not much change except a weird drop in black turnout. What's all the rest supposed to be?

I wonder why that is. I would have to assume that such a drop right now is something that will eventually even out, even if only on election day. Even in 2004, before Obama, African American's share of the FL electorate was 12% (vs 13% in 2008/2012)

A 5% drop would be an unmitigated disaster for Democrats.

Those numbers are of people who didn't either didn't vote in 2012 or are newly registered voters since 2012.

Before early voting the white vote from all VBM was 80%, after 4 days of in person voting it's down to 72%. I imagine that number will drop even more after this weekend. Also Micheal McDonald said that the Republican advantage due to VBM could be coming to an end and Democrats currently have more outstanding ballots.

[Gass3268]

Those numbers are of people who didn't either didn't vote in 2012 or are newly registered voters since 2012.

Ohh whoops!

BUT still, if it is among new / non-2012 voters, shouldn't African American turnout (among that group) still eventually average out to 12% - 13%? Since it doesn't, at least right now, couldn't that be interpreted to either be a slowing of African American participation post-Obama or perhaps that because African American participation in FL is already so high, it can't go much higher? (particularly in FL with almost 1/4 black adults being disenfranchised)

My guess is it's the second point you made. Much more room to grow in many states with the Latino electorate, while the black vote is essentially maxed out.

[Gass3268]

Some more on Florida:

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[Gass3268]

Some more on Florida:

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The Angry Puerto Rican vote will push FL into the higher single-digits.

P.S. Any updates on the complete totals from NV today?

More on FL:

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Amazing to think that Bush almost one this county in 2004.

[Gass3268]

This thread is strangely quiet today. Throughout the past week I've heard people say that the weekend results would be crucial, so how is it going?

Ralston earlier around 10-11am said that turn out is 700 below Friday in Nevada. Not good for the democrats.

He also made the point that Friday was a holiday in Nevada.

[Gass3268]

The numbers out of Hillsborough County (+6.4% Dem lead) feel pretty good. It's predicted correctly 19 of the last 20 Presidents.

[Gass3268]

25.5% of active voters of Florida have voted
Link: https://electionsmith.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/an-electionsmith-exclusive-floridas-latest-party-raceethnicity-age-turnout-figures-as-of-this-morning/

Party Turnout
-29.4% of 4.5m active registered Republicans have voted.

-27.0% of 4.8m active registered Democrats have voted.

-17.6% of 3.0m active registered No Party Affiliates have voted.

Racial/Ethnic Turnout

-28.1% of 8.2m active registered Whites have voted.

-20.6% of 1.7m active registered Blacks have voted.

-21.4% of 2.0m active registered Hispanics have voted.

Age Turnout

-41% of the 4.5m voters 60 and older have voted.

-25.6% of the 3.3m voters 45-59 have voted.

-14.7% of the 2.3m voters 30-44 have voted.

-9.5% of the 2.0m voters 18-29 have voted.

Not bad for the first 5 days of early voting. If anyone is nervous about the ages, note that VBM is essentially designed for seniors. Will be interested to see how today went.

[Gass3268]

Based on polling, I'm starting to think that Hillary's getting a % of Registered Republicans and unaffiliateds in the early vote.