absentee/early vote thread, part 2

[HillOfANight]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/upshot/early-vote-in-north-carolina-seems-to-confirm-a-clinton-lead.html

Registration Shifts Drive Apparent Turnout Shifts

"The turnout among registered Democrats is down. The turnout among registered Republicans is up." Well, there’s a pretty straightforward reason for that: The number of registered Democrats in North Carolina has declined since 2012. The number of registered Republicans has ticked up.

Over all, the number of registered Democrats has declined by 5.1 percent. The number of early voters who were registered Democrats has dipped by 3.1 percent — so the Democratic turnout hasn’t dropped as much as the number of registered Democrats.

Republican turnout has increased by more than the increase in Republican registration, but mainly because reliable Republican voters are turning out in greater numbers. As a result, we expected the Democratic registration edge to decline from 11 to 8 percentage points heading into the early vote."

Unaffiliated

"The big number of unaffiliated voters, however, makes it more important to try to figure out which way they lean. Their demographic characteristics are conflicting: On the one hand, they’re disproportionately white. On the other, they’re disproportionately young, urban, newly registered and born outside of the state."

"In our poll of early voters, Mrs. Clinton has a 49-39 lead among unaffiliated voters who have cast ballots. Mr. Trump has only a 10-point lead, 47 percent to 37 percent, among unaffiliated white voters."

Much more reassuring, compared to the numbers at face value. Still, election day is less than a week away

[HillOfANight]

Looks like we're on track for a 59% white electorate in GA this year.

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2016 (2012)

White: 56.7 (59.1)
Black: 30.1 (30.0)
Other: 10.1 (7.7)
Latino: 2.7 (1.7)
Asian: 1.8 (1.4)
Native American: 0.1 (0.1)

Related: Minority voter registration surges in Georgia

Great registration numbers, but the early voting is almost over and it doesn't look great.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fz_V3oAUL8XJMEudq5wm5hDT_f554uagt6sIm_sJDro/edit#gid=1996929977
http://www.electproject.org/2014_early_vote
2016 early vote (2014 early vote since I couldn't find 2012)

White 60.8% (58.1%)
Black 27.7% (30.8%)
Hispanic 1.3% (0.5%)
Other 2% (1%)
Unknown 8.1% (9.6%)

[HillOfANight]

Michael McDonald has mentioned his voter file is stale, maybe as of September so that could contribute to it, and I think third party vendors have better data on the unknowns (based on modeling).

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/01/politics/early-voting-update-black-vote-decreasing/
CNN has the Black vote at 31% as of 10/31, I think about 3% higher than Michael's reporting, but that's still trailing previous years.

He had been reporting 28.x% Black, yet it dipped to 27.7% today.

At least in Florida and North Carolina, the Black % is creeping up, but no sign of that in Georgia.

[HillOfANight]

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/11/03/are-ohio-republicans-beating-dems-at-their-own-early-voting-game.html

Ohio

- Republicans think they're behind 70K behind in early voting, half the gap vs 2012
- Republicans claim they're getting more low propensity voters vs Democrats
- In Democratic Cuyahoga County, Democrats are down 25% vs 2012, and Republicans up 13%
- In Republican Butler County, Democrats up 68%, Republicans only up 28%
- In Republican Delaware County, Democrats up 92%, vs Republicans up 50%

[HillOfANight]

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/11/02/arizona-early-voting-5-charts/93152768/

GOP up in Arizona, but less than in 2012. More Hispanic voters. Slightly younger.

[HillOfANight]

On Upshot's NC vote tracker, they have over half the total vote as in, and Hillary winning already-submitted votes by 10. That means Trump has to win remaining votes by at least 10 to carry the state. Not to mention 4 more days of early voting at current support numbers (roughly 50/50, if we're being conservative). That means Trump would have to win the election day vote pretty overwhelmingly unless things shift his way in the state right now. So, even if that Trump +7 poll was accurate and that's how people vote for the remainder of the election, he'd still lose the state overall.

Somebody please double-check my math, because it sounds a bit Karl Rovey when I read it back to myself.

It is based on a single Sienna/Upshot poll with Clinton +7. If the poll was right and the race has not changed since    OCT. 20-23, Trump is done.

I believe that Sienna is recontacting the poll's respondents to measure whether they have voted early or not and who they voted for, and is then making a projection for the rest of the state.

No, they are not recontacting voters to find out if they voted early, they can tell that by the data from the election board. They're also applying their old polling data to the early votes as they come in. If they have a big polling error (Trump's margin among Whites), their whole tracker is screwed...

[HillOfANight]

Florida - C+5 or more. It's going to be called early. Even if you assume both Trump and HRC are getting 90% of their respective votes each, NPAs break towards democratic candidates by 10-20% in FL. There are also significantly more NPAs this cycle.

If Democrats go into election day with a voter reg turnout advantage of 2-3 points, she may be approach 7-10 point territory depending on turnout on election day.

Well, the latest Upshot said they found lots of White Democrats disaffecting to Trump... So if that is true, it will be tight.

[HillOfANight]

http://www.insight-us.org/blog/north-carolinas-early-voting-2016-dashboard/

Democrats have banked a quarter million ballot lead on Republicans in North Carolina. That’s not nearly as impressive as it might sound though. At this same point in 2012, Dems’ lead was nearly 350,000 ballots.



More than half of the unaffiliateds that have voted, voted in the March primary, and 55% voted in the GOP primary, 45% voted in the Democratic primary.

Black voters are picking up the pace, but the gap is likely too much to match their 2012 performance.



Overall, aftering being very bullish on Democrats based on Republican underperformance with mail ballots, they're now very bearish on Democrats, expecting a very tight race.

[HillOfANight]

Colorado looks pretty solid D.

Florida is looking better.

North Carolina I think is still in the danger zone, depending on whether you believe many whites vote for Johnson, or they fall back to Trump.

[HillOfANight]

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Cool! I did some math, assuming no third parties, and that with that scenario, if Clinton is

up 5 (52-47), she can win with 45% of election day.
Up 10, win with 38%.
Up 15, win with 34%.

She's up 17 in early voting per TargetSmart, 9 per InsiderAdvantage, 6 per Quinnipiac. It seems the early vote keeps getting more diverse, so I assume the lead is growing.

[HillOfANight]

Not a Florida expert, but I recall vaguely Steve Schale said they had an 80K lead in early voting by party registration, and ended up winning 80K or something. (unaffiliateds balance the GOP winning election day).

[HillOfANight]

https://twitter.com/steveschale/status/794292452475727873

Steve Schale has hard #s, and it only accounts for early votes so far.

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[HillOfANight]

Democrats have closed the gap again in Florida yesterday and the difference is now less than 2k from 12k

But they won it 43-40 in 2012...

With Dixiecrats in the mix. Many of them have switched reg since 2012.

you don't know that for a fact

OK, explain to me why so many (overwhelmingly white) Dems have switched reg in the interim. Iĺl wait.

i don't know but you don't know as well. who knows how many democrats didn't switch their registration for ages and are voting republican? you are just guessing, skewing the news so they can fit your narrative. but that's kind of worse. landing on election night will only come harder.

We (people on democratic campaigns) have access to voter reg data and history.

Do you have a more specific # than Steve Schale's (total, not just who has early voted).

[HillOfANight]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/03/politics/early-voting-battleground-states/index.html

Arizona
- Registered Republicans are ahead right now by 5.5%. But at this point four years ago, the GOP had a 10% advantage over Democrats.
- But the good news for Republicans here is that it appears they're gaining ground. One week ago, their lead over Democrats was only about 11,500. Today that lead is more than 71,000.

Colorado
- The Democratic lead one week ago was about 5.6%. It stands at 1.5% today.

Florida
- GOP has a 16K lead (trailed by 73K in 2008)
- Latinos had the largest spike in terms of raw votes, boosting their turnout by 129% from 2008. - White voters increased their turnout by 55%.
- And even though African-American turnout is up by 24% that is clearly a slower growth rate than the other racial groups, and their share of the electorate dropped from 2008.

Iowa
- Right now, about 41,000 more Democrats than Republicans have voted in the Hawkeye State. But at this point four years ago, they had an edge of more than 60,000 votes.

Nevada
- Dems ahead 29K, larger than 1 week ago (4 years ago, they were ahead 38K)

North Carolina
- Right now, registered Democrats are ahead by about 243,000 votes statewide. At this point in 2012, the Democratic lead was more than 307,000 votes.
- Blacks are 28% in 2012 to about 23% today.

Ohio
- Registered Republicans expanded their lead this week in Ohio. They're now ahead of Democrats by almost 66,000 votes, or about 5 points. They were only up by 2.5 points one week ago.

[HillOfANight]

So based on those Iowa numbers, why does it look so dire for HRC there? Obama won the state by 92k votes after an EV advantage of 60k. The election day vote shift would have to be substantial.

She's down in polling, so probably losing indies, and needs a huge dem turnout.

[HillOfANight]

https://twitter.com/adamsmithtimes/status/794599190009614340
Clinton's campaign manager think they're ahead by 170K in Florida. Obama's team thought they were behind in 2012.

[HillOfANight]

https://twitter.com/adamsmithtimes/status/794599190009614340
Clinton's campaign manager think they're ahead by 170K in Florida. Obama's team thought they were behind in 2012.

I did the math, with 5.3M votes in, give 2% to third parties, leaves 5.194M for Trump/Clinton. On Mook's math, they're up 4% in early voting, 2.7M/52% to 2.5M/48%. THe lead should grow with voting in the weekend.

[HillOfANight]

CNN poll showed Trump carrying Indies 2-1 (58-29) but that's almost impossible. Romney carried it 50-43 so he would need to outperform him by let's say 20 points. I don't believe it's possible.

CNN's "poll" also put Trump ahead in Clark County (!).

https://twitter.com/ericbradner/status/793853543065190400
CNN savaged its own polling division and doesn't believe those crosstabs.

[HillOfANight]

https://twitter.com/gercohen/status/795358638730858496

For everyone nervous about the collapse in Black turnout in North Carolina

2012: It is only 5% Black, but Obama carried it over Romney 69% to 29%, with 3,670 votes cast in the precinct that year.

This year through Friday, November 4 there have already been 4,354 votes cast in early and mail-in voting, a 73.1% turnout of registered voters. Analyzing it by party it's even more stark. Here's the turnout by party:

Democratic 79.7%
Republican 65.0%
Unaffiliated 69.6%*
Libertarian 59.3%

[HillOfANight]

As of today's early voting figures. Florida crosses the 70% threshold and NC comes very close, too.

'16 EV as a % of '12 Total:

Code:

NV 75.87%
FL 72.61%
AZ 69.18%
NC 68.96%
TN 68.16%
GA 61.00%
CO 60.45%
OR 59.35%
MT 56.35%
TX 56.28%
WA 54.21%
-----------
UT 47.21%
AR 46.89%
NM 45.93%
IA 37.68%
MD 36.16%
ND 34.82%
DC 34.50%
KS 32.43%
CA 32.22%
ME 30.51%
WV 27.43%
ID 26.85%
LA 26.31%
WI 25.32%
IN 24.31%
IL 24.04%
MA 22.14%
SC 21.71%
SD 21.61%
NE 21.58%
HI 21.03%
-----------
OH 18.90%
MI 18.10%
AK 17.41%
WY 16.33%
VT 15.13%
OK 14.77%
MN 14.22%
VA 12.52%
DE 5.41%
NJ 4.73%
KY 4.08%
RI 3.78%
NH 3.64%
MO 2.01%
MS 1.08%
AL 0.12%
-----------
CT 0.00%
NY 0.00%
PA 0.00% 

Cool! There's been lots of hand wringing about Black turnout, and though the share has been down, the turnout hasn't been (except North Carolina due to the GOP).

https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/794566786960199680

Georgia race comparison to 2012 same day
Afr-Am +28,935 (+5.2%)
White +292,321 (+29.6%)

With whites up bigly in the Georgia early vote, wonder if they'll be weaker on election day, or if this is new voters for Trump.

[HillOfANight]

Georgia

http://www.myajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/a-breakdown-of-georgias-record-number-of-early-vot/ns5HH/

Share of vote
Blacks are down from 34% in 2012 to 28.4% this year.
Whites are up from 59% in 2012 to 61%
Latinos are up 0.8%
Asians are up 0.7%

Counties where the share of early voting by whites dropped the most:
Forsyth (Obama 18 Romney 81) 12%
Whitfield (O27 R72) 5%
Rockdale (O58 R41) 4%
Gwinnett (O45 R55) 3%

Counties where the share of early voting by blacks dropped the most:
The top ones are all rural, but
DeKalb County — where rolls are now 53 percent black — fell 11%
---
No idea what's going on in Dekalb... Obama won 78% to 21%, so maybe excited white hippies for her? Forsyth is also shocking on the opposite side but understandable given demographic change.

https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/794566786960199680
Michael has also noted, more Blacks have voted in Georgia, it's just that a surge in white early voters are pushing their share down. If a lot of that is cannibalization, it may not be so bad for her.

[HillOfANight]

Forsyth is also shocking on the opposite side but understandable given demographic change.

I live in Forsyth County, and there is clearly less enthusiasm for Trump here than for past Republican nominees.  Certainly there are some zealous Trump supporters, but many of the more affluent and highly educated Republicans are put off by Trump.  I know some normally certain R voters who'll leave the top spot blank, a couple voting for McMullin, and at least one voting for Clinton.  In addition, the county has seen demographic change as you mentioned; there are more AA and Latino residents here than ever before.

Not that I expect Forsyth to be close (that would be the biggest election shock ever), but it won't be the blowout of the last two elections.  Romney won 81-18 and McCain 78-20.  I really doubt that Trump will break 70%; perhaps something like 68-27.

68-27 in Forsyth seems like a landslide for Clinton statewide! Is there any evidence that the surge in white voters is just cannibalization, or is North GA really growing their vote to vote Trump, and offset his losses among the educated?

I'm still encouraged by the close race among the live caller polls

[HillOfANight]

http://www.l2political.com/blog/2016/11/07/early-voting-battleground-states-oh-az-nc-fl-wi-co-ga-nv-new-registrants-nationwide-mi/

I took their non partisan #s, did the math of the lean, and added it to the D/R #.

OH
Democrats: 50.3%, Republicans 49.5%

AZ
Democrats: 44%, Republicans 47%

NC
Democrats:51%  Republicans: 48%

FL
Democrats: 48% Republicans 52% (missing weekend data)

GA– my state
Republican 43.5% // Democrat 32.7% // 23.6% Non-partisan (Likely leaning among non-partisans: 65.3% D // 34.6% R)
Gender 57.6% F // 42.3% M

Net GA Democrats 48% Republicans 52%

Clark County, NV – Early Voting Returned Ballots as of 11/4/16
Republican 33.0% // Democrat 45.9% // 16.0% Non-partisan (Likely leaning among non-partisans: 39.2% D // 60.7% R)

Net Clark County Democrats 57% Republicans 43%

[HillOfANight]

Ds really need to figure out their appeal to white voters they clearly haven't hit the bottom with them. Dems seem stuck at 30-33% in NC which results in narrow losses for them, 20-25% in GA etc.

The latest polls seem to have her improving...
2008 Georgia exit polls had it Obama 23%, McCain 76% (R+53%)
Landmark's final 2014 poll had Nunn at 22%, Perdue at 74%, a margin of 52%.

Landmark's final 2016 poll has Clinton at 26%, Trump at 68%, a margin of 42%.
Marist/NBC's recent poll has Clinton at 27% Trump at 65%, a 38% margin.
Quinnipiac's recent poll has her 23-65, 42%.

At least from Landmark/Marist, she's doing better with whites a little, and Johnson is taking Trump's support. Whether that will hold up on election day though...

[HillOfANight]

Hope for Clinton in North Carolina. 21% of Republicans voted on election day, vs 17% of Democrats and 19% unaffiliated. Not a huge difference...

https://twitter.com/BowTiePolitics/status/796052564466958336