Early & Absentee Voting Megathread - Build the Freiwal

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

These numbers in Texas do look pretty insane, but I'd be curious to see what more rural counties look like. If turnout is extremely high in ruby red Republican territory as well, that doesn't bode nearly as well for Beto.

This is indeed a very good question, but it is hard to tell because data on smaller/rural counties is less available in news reports, and as Gass3268 says, the TX Secretary of State only reports #s for the top 15 counties. So 2016 #s are missing for a lot of the other counties.

Here is a bit of an attempt to find info on smaller counties that nonetheless are not really rural (more small cities).


Lubbock - https://www.kcbd.com/2018/10/22/lubbock-county-voters-line-up-early-voting-with-more-than-new-registrations/

Lubbock County:

2018: 9,191
2016:
2014: 2,408


Amarillo - http://www.newschannel10.com/2018/10/23/first-day-early-voting-breaks-records-potter-randall-counties/

Potter County:

2018: 1,821
2016: 1,710
2014: 548


Midland - https://www.texastribune.org/2018/10/22/texas-early-voting-turnout/

Midland County:

2018: "3,546 had voted by 4 p.m. Monday"
2016:
2014: 756


Beaumont - https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Midterm-madness-Bigger-crowds-on-Day-1-of-early-13327388.php

Jefferson County:

2018: "As of 2:30 p.m. Monday some 3,290 people turned out to vote"
2016:
2014: 3,131


Tyler - https://tylerpaper.com/news/local/high-turnout-brings-lines-to-smith-county-polling-locations/article_cefec308-d650-11e8-9bfc-835d204962ee.html

Smith County:

2018: 4,963
2016:
2014: 1,577


Waco - https://www.wacotrib.com/news/elections/turnout-soars-in-mclennan-county-on-first-day-of-early/article_c913765f-4792-553a-a40c-7a36482166fb.html

McLennan County:

2018: 4,882
2016: 4,376
2014: 1,150


Temple/Killeen - http://www.tdtnews.com/news/article_2727dc60-d659-11e8-8099-c3b84aa4e830.html

Bell County:

2018: 5,783
2016:
2014: 1,580


Abilene - https://www.bigcountryhomepage.com/news/main-news/taylor-county-early-voting-numbers-smash-first-day-turnout-of-2014/1542793751

Taylor County:

2018: 3,361
2016: 887
2014: 3,247



So it is clear there is high turnout in these smaller cities as well. No doubt the votes in these places are more GOP favorable than in Austin/South TX, etc, but we don't know specifically who is voting in these places. I am sure that overall it must favor Cruz, but it could easily favor him by less than one might think if Dem turnout in those areas as well is unusually high. Beto has of course drawn unusual crowds even in these smaller city and rural areas that are not usually Dem at all.

The other very important question is - on both sides - is whether the people voting early are people who always vote, just voting earlier than usual, or if they are actual new voters and/or infrequent voters who don't normally vote in midterms. If Beto is bringing out new people, but Rs are just getting there usual voters to vote earlier, then GOP early voting turnout could be very high and it not make much of a difference. Overall though, I have to think that higher turnout is better for Dems in TX (maybe not better in some other states, but definitely better in general in TX).

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

To your comment on Texas, turnout was in fact record-shattering even in small, deeply Republican counties. From the Texas Tribune:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/10/22/texas-early-voting-turnout/

That's a percentage increase of 369% over 2014. (Midland County voted for Trump 75% to 20% in 2016.) By comparison, first-day turnout increased by almost 90% in Dallas County and by 176% in Travis County.

Both Dallas County and Travis County do of course have far more raw votes than Midland, but if smaller Republican counties across the board also see such astonishing spikes in turnout, it could negate any benefit for the Democrats.

The thing is...

Midland County isn't really that small. It is certainly smaller than Dallas/Austin/etc, but it has 165k people in the county. It is also 45% Hispanic.

Yes, it is traditionally extremely Republican. It is also traditionally low turnout... And that is part of the reason why it is traditionally so Republican (in addition to other things such as the importance of oil in the economy in west TX, the fact that Hispanic turnout has traditionally been so low is also a big part of the story).

So higher turnout in Midland is only good for Republicans up to a point... If too many of those Hispanics start voting, then although the R raw vote margin may increase, eventually you are going to start adding more Dems and start cutting down on the Republican % margin of victory.


And Midland and places like it may (or may not) be another story to places that are really rural-small town - counties with populations of maybe 20,000, 40,000, 5000, 500, etc. We have no indication of what turnout is like in those sort of really small counties.

[Xing]

Clark is in, 28K voted, but the Democratic advantage was about the same as it was on Sunday, about 44-37. That means a net gain of 2K from Clark itself, and Democrats are now ahead by 7.2K in the in person vote, 4.8K overall. They're padding to their lead, but they need to hope that unaffiliated voters are going to break Democratic, since a 7% win in Clark isn't going to be enough.

[Adam Griffin]

Not sure if it's been pointed out yet, but TargetSmart isn't some no-name firm: it's used by many, including the Democratic National Committee, and is actually the firm that's providing state and county parties with turnout and support modeling solutions in their voter file this year (as a baseline; I'm sure they have others). For example, I can see TargetSmart models for my county via our voter file.

However, I'd be willing to bet $10 that the way NBC conducted their analysis was that they took TargetSmart's modelling projections for these states and split them down the middle (which I similarly did for my county at the beginning of early voting). These models work on percentage chance of doing something; a 0-100% chance of being a Democrat, a 0-100% chance of turning out, etc.

It's important to note that classifying everybody who has a <50% chance of voting Democratic as a "Republican" and everybody with a >50% chance as a "Democrat" is inherently flawed: especially if independents are leaning notably in one direction or another this cycle. This would definitely make the baseline scores lean more Republican in their projections than they would be in reality.

[Adam Griffin]

I mean, the likelihood (for example) that Abrams is doing 9-10 points worse than Carter among a similar demographic EV group in GA should speak volumes to the accuracy of these NBC projections.

[ON Progressive]

Clark is in, 28K voted, but the Democratic advantage was about the same as it was on Sunday, about 44-37. That means a net gain of 2K from Clark itself, and Democrats are now ahead by 7.2K in the in person vote, 4.8K overall. They're padding to their lead, but they need to hope that unaffiliated voters are going to break Democratic, since a 7% win in Clark isn't going to be enough.

I'm starting to worry myself, if I'm honest.

[Coastal Elitist]

California update: 10/22 (over 800,000 ballots returned)

Democrats 337,317 42%
Republicans 277,838 35%
Other 189,036 23%

[Brittain33]

Praying for Beto

You're beto off praying for Joe Donnelly, Claire McCaskill, Bill Nelson, and Kyrsten Sinema.

LOL

Did you forget you were pretending to be a socialist who was voting Republican to advance progressive causes? Just trying to help.

[wbrocks67]

Clark is in, 28K voted, but the Democratic advantage was about the same as it was on Sunday, about 44-37. That means a net gain of 2K from Clark itself, and Democrats are now ahead by 7.2K in the in person vote, 4.8K overall. They're padding to their lead, but they need to hope that unaffiliated voters are going to break Democratic, since a 7% win in Clark isn't going to be enough.

I'm starting to worry myself, if I'm honest.

It's only been 3 days. Dems still have a lead. There's a LOT of UA voters. Clark has nearly 20%. They could easily be breaking for Dems. Most polls show Indies breaking for Dems.

[bilaps]

So basicaly a tie on the third day in NV while Democrats still doing better than expected in Washoe, Republicans are still outperforming in Clark.

Also, we have no idea how independents will break. We've gone a long way from day 1 and NV is going to have a blue wave to "i think indies are voting d this year the same polls we don't beleive are showing that"

[bilaps]

113750 people voted early in FL on day 1 and Dems have a 4,5k advantage in early vote over republicans.

I'll deep dive into numbers soon, but also worth noting is that Republican edge in VBM is now 58k, was 54k.

[bilaps]

Very good numbers for Republicans from top Florida counties

In Broward Dems have a 57,7-26,1 lead after day 1. In 2014 total it was 62,4-19,66. In 2016 it was 56,0-20,3.

In Miami Dade Dems have a 49,6-31,9 lead. In 2014 it was 53,3-27,28. In 2016 45,9-26,3. Again these are total numbers.

In Palm Beach Dems have 46,9-34,6 edge. In 2014 it was 49,8-28,4 and in 2016 46,5-27,8

And in Pinellas it is 40,9-40,0 for Dems after day 1. In 2014 total was 41,1-35,5 and in 2016 39,3-34,5..

So Dems are closer to it's 2016 numbers while Republicans are performing better in these counties both from 2014 and 2016.

Yes, I am comparing day 1 with overall percentages but still I would think Dems would want better numbers.

[Hindsight was 2020]

I must confess I’m getting nervous that turnout is getting too high to the point we might have a really polarized result

[Brittain33]

I must confess I’m getting nervous that turnout is getting too high to the point we might have a really polarized result

I'm feeling that the ideal real of high Dem and indy turnout and low GOP turnout is just not going to happen—the Republicans love them some Trump—so I'm putting my hope in Dem turnout being really high and Indys breaking heavily against Trump's party.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Honestly the one that’s got me down is Florida. It’s only one day but the Dems getting only 2k from that big of a turnout is atrocious in all honesty

[bilaps]

I must confess I’m getting nervous that turnout is getting too high to the point we might have a really polarized result

I'm feeling that the ideal real of high Dem and indy turnout and low GOP turnout is just not going to happen—the Republicans love them some Trump—so I'm putting my hope in Dem turnout being really high and Indys breaking heavily against Trump's party.

Yes, this could happen. Best bet for Dems to have some kind of wave is to independents break towards them in big numbers, cause R voters seem very energized as well.. At least it's in these early states where early vote does mean something like in NV or FL.

So, two swing counties from FL and same trend like in other big counties

In Duval, Dems have edged Republicans on day 1 44,6-43,3. In 2014 total result of early vote was 42,4-39,9 and in 2016 it was 44,2-39,1

In Hilsoborough Dems have 44.0-40,3 lead. In 2014 total was 44,3-37,7. In 2016 42,4-33,9.

So republicans outperforming their total percentage numbers both from 2014 and 2016 in all these big counties so far.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/electionsmith/status/1054567507086970880

[bilaps]

In Lee county, republicans have 56,1% of the early vote on day 1. Total 2014 50,11, total 2016 45,7.

[TheRocketRaccoon]

If anyone wants to read Schale's quick analysis, it's here.

http://steveschale.com/blog/2018/10/23/14-days-out-to-election-and-fsu-basketball.html

Dems performing at a benchmark somewhere between 2014 EV (bad) and 2016 EV (very good). They cut the total GOP edge from 5.75% to 3.9%.

[Gass3268]

Good to see Democrats overperforming in Florida.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

This thread makes me want to roll my eyes out of my head

[TheRocketRaccoon]

This thread makes me want to roll my eyes out of my head

Why? Do you not trust the analysis of expert Atlas posters over some rando called Steve Schale?

[bilaps]

This thread makes me want to roll my eyes out of my head

Why? Do you not trust the analysis of expert Atlas posters over some rando called Steve Schale?

it's not analysis dude, it's raw numbers.

[Xing]

This thread makes me want to roll my eyes out of my head

Why? Do you not trust the analysis of expert Atlas posters over some rando called Steve Schale?

it's not analysis dude, it's raw numbers.

True, but there are many different ways to read the numbers, and 1-3 days of in person voting really isn’t enough to conclude anything.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Another big county in South TX (Brownsville area), which is 90% Hispanic:

https://twitter.com/RamiroGarzaTX/status/1054721491495866368

Los Hispanos estan votando en Tejas...