The absentee/early vote thread

[dspNY]

A similar pattern is seen in Maine as Dems are in the very early going outpacing their 2012 early turnout. We'll see if it holds up

https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/777622513975042048

[dspNY]

It's early, but those don't seem to suggest an enormous Republican trend in the state, which would be necessary to flip ME-02.

Yeah, it looks like from those CD breakdowns that Clinton would win CD-2 by 3-5 points as long as that trend continued. Maine would shift 2-3 points right but not into any kind of battleground status

[dspNY]

FL has released their absentee requests by county and party.
https://countyballotfiles.elections.myflorida.com/FVRSCountyBallotReports/AbsenteeEarlyVotingReports/PublicStats

Hard to conclude much when Miami Dade isn't included in the numbers yet.

No numbers for Palm Beach County either

[dspNY]

https://twitter.com/IAStartingLine/status/778326496599429120

Follow IAStartingLine for good analysis in Iowa. Dems are 45% compared to 2012, GOP at 102%. BUT, Dems have delayed sending ballots since their studies show sending it too early confuses people... It could also show lack of enthusiasm.

Party         Today           Then       % Diff

Democrat    43,443    97,001    45%
Republican 15,272    14,909    102%
No Party    16,180    30,083    54%
Other         178          128       139%

He says the ballots have already been sent out for local candidates and they are seeing margins that parallel 2012. It's 99% due to the Clinton campaign waiting a week or two to get them sent. Notice the GOP number is hardly different at this stage. That's the number you have to watch for increased turnout on the GOP side

[dspNY]

Democrats maintaining an edge in requested absentee ballots in North Carolina. Anyone have any idea when the GOP took the lead last cycle?

The GOP took the lead 3 or 4 days earlier than this in 2012 so they are lagging by quite a bit. Dem ballot requests are still above 2012 levels

[dspNY]

Don't absentee votes generally favor Democrats? We can't tell anything from this yet.

Nope, they usually favor the GOP

Edit: Iowa is a rare exception

[dspNY]

4.3 million early votes in Florida in 2012.

43% Democrat
40% Republican

That includes all the vote in person. Absentees skew GOP, vote in person skews Dem

[dspNY]

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Nevada moves to Lean D with those registration numbers. Not enough votes in the rest of the state to offset. Probably moves the Senate race to Tossup even with Cortez-Masto trailing in most polling

[dspNY]

Some Florida news:

https://twitter.com/electionsmith/status/782929522773680128

Dems have submitted 469k new voter registration forms. GOP submitted only 59k

[dspNY]

To counter what is going to be a very heavy Democratic early vote, the Repubs have to be leading the Florida VBM by a minimum of 250K to have a chance. Today the VBM narrowed to a 110K advantage for the GOP. Additionally, a lot of Florida independents are Hispanic so the Indy vote is pretty close to even there

[dspNY]

An early advantage for Clinton in Ohio:

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In 2012, Cuyahoga County accounted for 11.5% of the vote in Ohio. 17% of the absentee ballots are from Cuyahoga

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/06/clinton-campaign-claims-three-battleground-states-could-be-locked-through-early-voting/

[dspNY]

An early advantage for Clinton in Ohio:

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In 2012, Cuyahoga County accounted for 11.5% of the vote in Ohio. 17% of the absentee ballots are from Cuyahoga

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/06/clinton-campaign-claims-three-battleground-states-could-be-locked-through-early-voting/

Encouraging news.

She badly needs max turnout from Cuyahoga to carry Ohio.

Very true. As for Florida, Mook is happy that Democrats have narrowed the gap with vote by mail. As long as they keep it relatively close (right now Repubs have 42.5% of the mail-in ballots, Dems have 38%, and Indies have the remaining 19.5%), they expect to overtake the Republicans in the early vote when in-person voting starts and think they'll have a larger lead going into Nov. 8 than Obama had 4 years ago

[dspNY]

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/784470654091419648

According to Nate Cohn/Upshot, at this point in mail voting, Romney was up 24. Trump is only up 1 among those who have returned mail ballots.

Hillary is working Trump on the ground in NC

[dspNY]

After Palm Beach County finally updated its ballot requests, Democrats have narrowed the Republican advantage in statewide VBM ballot requests to approximately 87,600

GOP: 1,130,494 (41.9%)
Dem: 1,042,897 (38.6%)
Ind/NPA: 459,465 (17.0%)
Other: 65,689 (2.4%)

[dspNY]

488K new registration forms submitted by the Florida Democratic Party; 60K by the Florida Republican Party

That could be worth 3-4 points. A gap that big is a structural shift in the electorate. About 8.5 million voted in the 2012 election in FL

[dspNY]

Florida VBM requests: Democrats narrow Republican edge to 80K

GOP: 1,126,999 (41.7%)
DEM: 1,046,634 (38.7%)
IND: 461,857 (17.1%)
Others: 65,717 (2.4%)

[dspNY]

Florida's voter registration deadline extended by 1 day in court (to October 12) after Clinton's campaign brought suit against Gov. Scott

https://www.dropbox.com/s/77qsoirtd67o9ff/show_temp.pl-6.pdf?dl=0

[dspNY]

Florida ballot requests: Dems have narrowed the GOP vote-by-mail advantage to 68,000

GOP: 1,133,754
Dem: 1,065,059
Ind: 473,902
Other: 66,665

Early votes counted:

GOP: 21,106
Dem: 18,419
Ind: 7,290
Other: 1,591

[dspNY]

Early in-person voting started today in Ohio so we get to see the Hillary ground game do their thing

[dspNY]

Florida VBM ballot requests:

GOP: 1,122,963 (41.0%)
DEM: 1,065,295 (39.0%)
IND: 480,200 (17.6%)
Other: 66,142 (2.4%)

Florida VBM Votes cast:

GOP: 43,409 (42.7%)
DEM: 40,093 (39.4%)
IND: 14,929 (14.7%)
Other: 3,305 (3.2%)

The Democrats have narrowed the traditional Republican advantage in VBM requests + votes cast to around 60K. That slim advantage is nowhere near enough, in my opinion, for the Republicans to carry Florida considering the major Democratic advantage during in-person early voting

[dspNY]

On the other hand, the Republicans still have a glimmer of hope in Iowa. Yesterday, the ballot requests and votes received looked like this:

Ballots Requested

DEM: 128,421
GOP: 95,888
IND: 57,190
Other: 695

Ballots Cast

DEM: 56,553
GOP: 27,933
IND: 18,416
Other: 228

Now Clinton has a 90,000 vote cushion to work with from 2012 but the Dem ballot requests are still lagging significantly from 2012, where Obama won the state before election day

[dspNY]

I also believe with the Florida voter registration deadline moved back to October 18, the VBM request deadline might also be moved back to the same date, but we'll have to see the details of the ruling

[dspNY]

Florida VBM:

Ballots Requested + Votes

GOP: 1,091,602 + 83,646 = 1,175,248 (41.0%)
DEM: 1,039,497 + 77,817 = 1,117,314 (39.0%)
IND: 473,708 + 29,378 = 503,086 (17.6%)
Others: 64,440 + 6,016 = 70,456 (2.4%)

[dspNY]

They'll probably update it one more time today but in Florida VBM, Democrats have cut the total ballots requested disadvantage to 48,000 (42,000 fewer ballots requested and 6,000 fewer ballots cast)

[dspNY]

1.5 million new registered Texas voters since 2012, a staggering increase. 777K since March, mostly in Democratic areas and places with large Latino populations.

Remember Univision said they were going to register 3 million more Latino voters. I wonder if they did crazy behind the scenes work in TX