Talk Elections

Thought  this deserved its own thread as early and absentee voting is big in Florida.  Through Thursday, about 462k ballots were in, about 274k absentee the rest through early voting. If final turnout is 2 million, we may be looking at around 25% of the vote already in.

It will be interesting to break down the early voters into pre-South Carolina and post-South Carolina voters.  Will Romney have an advantage of the pre-SC voters (especially those before the final SC debate last Thursday) and will Gingrich have the advantage among post-SC voters with his big win in the Palmetto State and his lead in the polls up through last night's debate.

Newt didn't lead in the polls through last night's debate.

Oh, that's right.  I guess the bounce out of South Carolina was shorter-lived than I thought.

I have the option to early vote thru tomorrow... I will be waiting until Tuesday becaue I want to see who the strongest alternative to Romney is at that point. Probably still Newt

I just early voted today....it was busier then I expected, with about 7 or 8 people voting.

When I voted I was the only person there, except for poll workers obviously.
And I voted in an area with normally high turnout.

The Reuters Ipsos poll which has a Romney 8 point lead released tonite have 29% saying they've already voted, with Romney ahead by 7 in that group.

CNN polling taken before the Thursday Florida debate gives Romney a 9 point lead over Gingrich.

Most analysts agree the debate gave Romney a boost so likely Romney has by now widened his lead over Gingrich.

The PPP poll released tonite now has 35% saying they have already voted.  This is probably coming close to the final numbers as early voting ended today, and if you were going to send an absentee ballot off, today would have been about the latest you would want to send it.
Romney is leading by 45 to 35 over Gingrich among these early voters according to the PPP poll which dovetails with other polls.

So far looking good, looking good!  I remain optimistic!  :D

I believe thru last night the new numbers are, 294 k absentee ballots returned (out of 500k requested) and 239 k voting early, so 534k total votes already in, plus what arrives in the mail on Monday and Tuesday. 
The ARG poll claims that 36% said they've already voted and Romney lead Newt 51-33, PPP said Romney leads 45-35 among already voted.

Seeing as how there is no way in hell you're voting Paul, allow me to implore you to vote Newt

I don't know...Santorum's surging. ;)

Not to the 30-40% which would even remotely challenge Romney

True, but Gingrich is heading in the opposite direction and certainly won't be at that level for long, if he's even still there at this point.

I'll make you a $10,000 bet that, come election day, Newt will still be ahead of Santorum

I don't think I ever said that wouldn't be the case...

No, but the point is that he support whoever is going to come in second against Romney. That person is almost certainly going to be Gingrich. Whether Santorum surges by a couple of percentage points doesn't make a difference in the long run

New numbers are actually close to about 600k total early/absentee votes.