Early & Absentee Voting Megathread - Build the Freiwal

[Virginiá]

Early voting started in Wisconsin today.

Also any way we can get this stickied to to the top?

done

[Virginiá]

Has this been posted?

https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/pdf/2018/general/AbsenteeCongressional2018.pdf

In absentee numbers (sent):

Democrats: 83,734
Republicans: 20,564
No Party: 25,979
Libertarian: 756


IIRC, Democrats tend to do well in Iowa with absentee voting but I don't recall it being that big of a gap.

[Virginiá]

oh please god no

After 2016 I don't want to hear a f**king word about early voting ever again (except if it's about Nevada and from Jon Ralston, I guess).

Absolutely right, butttttt:




Bring on the early voting stats! My Body is ready.

[Virginiá]

Ralston is claiming that turnout in Clark county today was 22,000 by 3 PM, over twice what it was in 2014.

https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1053789569621999616

Curious what the first day of early voting in 2016 was like.

[Virginiá]

Ralston is claiming that turnout in Clark county today was 22,000 by 3 PM, over twice what it was in 2014.

https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1053789569621999616

Curious what the first day of early voting in 2016 was like.

https://www.nvsos.gov/sos/home/showdocument?id=4543

Oh that's right, I forgot about that site.

So far looks like only half of 2016's first day. >= 25k (assuming end of day ends around there) would be more in line with 2010.

[Virginiá]

Pffft, and now I just realized he was only talking about Clark and I was looking at statewide totals. With that in mind, this is really impressive.

[Virginiá]

The AG race? No offense but AG races across the country do not really inspire people to turn out in droves to the polls.

But turnout among Democrats already bottomed out in Nevada (2014), which led to huge losses at every level for them. So turnout wasn't the issue for Laxalt. He had the worst performance of all Republicans running for statewide office. Yes, it's debatable exactly how much people knew about the row officers they were voting for, but they clearly had some idea because the results tended to vary between races, with Laxalt barely winning his while his colleagues went on to comfortable wins (or flat out landslides).

I don't know how much this speaks to his possible performance this cycle, but there is certainly more reason to believe he's a "weaker" candidate than not.

[Virginiá]

Not that there is necessarily anyone there for him, but imagine telling someone you camped out for hours or gasps, all night to vote first for Ted Cruz.

That is like a perfect example of when the person you're telling is happy and excited to hear what you did, but is then groaning and looking for an exit by the time you finish.

[Virginiá]

It is the first day of early voting in TX and there are reportedly long lines in Houston. This has video, looks like a pretty good # of non-white people:

https://twitter.com/JeremySWallace/status/1054355561838456832

looks in video for ted cruz voters who have pulled their coats over their faces as they rush inside.

[Virginiá]

Please don't dump dozen(s) of tweets at a time.

If you're going to use more than 4 or so in a message, just quote the text and use a tweet link.

[Virginiá]

Shouldn't all young voters in Texas be presumed to be absurdly Democratic? That is how their presidential votes tend to be. They are arguably more Democratic than old people (65+) are Republican.

[Virginiá]

You can't compare a Special Election vs a General Election.

You can when they are high turnout, and numerous Congressional special elections under Trump have had high turnout - AZ-08 was one of them. Midterm-level turnout allows you to draw those kinds of conclusions.

And the big reason Hillary Clinton for starters obtained more Republican Crossover Votes at Precinct Level Results in 2016 is that Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio was on the Ballot and a good chunk of the GOP wanted him out too, not just Democrats. That's the Main Reason AZ was close in the first place.

Proof? Anything at all?

This seems like CNN pundit-level analysis where they just randomly pick some reason to attribute to why an election happened the way it did, yet it usually ends up being wrong.

[Virginiá]

The problem with 2016's analysis is that Maricopa County's swing to Clinton was hardly unique. In many other states, in similar counties (Orange County in CA, Dallas and Houston suburbs in TX, Atlanta suburbs in GA, etc), Dems made similar sorts of gains. And Joe Arapaio had nothing to do with any of that.

One can always come up with a just-so story to explain away any inconvenient fact, but if you have to start coming up with lots of special stories for explaining results everywhere, that is usually a sign that it is just a story you are telling yourself. Similarly, in 2010, Dems told themselves lots of such stories about how things were not going to be that bad. In each race, there had to be a different story, because if you looked at the overall picture and weren't pre-committed to trying to explain everything away, it didn't appear good.

The problem at this point is that 2016 has been running around for weeks trying to spin bad polls and early voting data (recently)

I tried telling him that he is liable to be disappointed, but he's convinced for some reason.

[Virginiá]

Ignore the troll, guys. Just like we should be ignoring the troll's username, since this is a different and unique year.

I do like how the definition of a wave is changing to fit new realities.

[Virginiá]

Ignore the troll, guys. Just like we should be ignoring the troll's username, since this is a different and unique year.

I do like how the definition of a wave is changing to fit new realities.

The Dems winning the house but losing 3-4 senate seats isn’t a wave

Uh, yes it is? Senate elections are different. If every Senate seat was up, you'd see much more Dem-friendly results. Likewise, winning 30 House seats when Democrats spent the last 4 election cycles either losing tons of seats or just winning a handful here and there, then yes, it absolutely is.

Also, if the House popular vote is 7+ points, that is unambiguously a wave, especially when taken in the context of a generation's worth of close elections. Just because the system is rigged in the GOP's favor (or a limited Senate map has had so many Democratic successes over the past 2 cycles) doesn't mean there wasn't a huge backlash to them. It's similar to building massive seawalls along a coast. Just because a tsunami didn't crash over the nearby countryside doesn't mean a tsunami didn't actually happen. It just means the structural protections kept it from affecting anything.

If you want an example of a wave with little Senate gains:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_1982

There is simply no way you can state that winning the House popular vote by double digits is not a wave just because there was not a smorgasbord of Senate gains too. That doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.

[Virginiá]

Sorry Virginia but getting killed in the senate isn’t a wave. If the dems win the house by double digits but lose ND, IN, MO, AZ, and Nevada that isn’t a wave that’s the confirmation we are so polarized that we practically have two Americas. Ever president up till now that was in a similar position as Trump lost seats in both chambers. Also your example doesn’t work because I’d agree that if the Dems pick up just won seat and lost ND then that’s a wave. I’m talking about losing a bunch of senate seats.

Losing a seat in a deeply Republican state isn't really that reflective of the rest of the country, especially when you yourself acknowledge polarization. In that sense, it's perfectly possible for the country as a whole to experience a wave but some states to not be affected much because they have such a large lean in one direction that there aren't enough votes there to overcome it. This is particularly noteworthy given that there is a fairly solid correlation of what geographic regions are experiencing a backlash and which aren't. If Democrats control most of the seats up in any particular election, and a number of them are from these deeply Republican-leaning states, that presents a situation where it's possible to lose one or more of them but also sweep other races in other parts of the country in what is undoubtedly a wave.

What if we had an alternate universe where Democrats controlled every single seat in this class of Senate seats due to a Watergate-level wave 6 years prior? That would mean a bunch of seats in staunchly Republican states that rarely ever vote for the other party. Do you really think it's realistic to not lose a handful of them? In this scenario, a wave could still result in upwards of ~6 - 10 seats being lost just due to how hugely unfavorable some of the states are and that in most scenarios Democrats never would have held them to begin with.

I'm not even talking about 2018 anymore. I'm just saying your general interpretation of a wave doesn't fit with the way we conduct elections. The Senate is a fundamentally different animal due to the staggered seats and the larger geographic coverage of each seat. But I will say that if someone from the future told me that we didn't win NZ and AZ but also lost a bunch of other Senate seats, I'd question whether we won the House at all.

[Virginiá]

Complacency, which I have warned about many times in this darn forum. C'mon. The numbers don't lie, period. Confidence is just a feeling one has...not backed up by any cold hard facts.

Concern trolling over incomplete data is something worth warning about too.

[Virginiá]

@Antonio Whatever the data says right now, I still think it's worth saying that there is no point getting worked up about this. Just let early voting run its course and then go over the data as a whole. I can only really speak for myself, but I remember getting excited about early voting in 2016, and it was disappointing in the end (albeit not necessarily proportionately disappointing across the country).

We're quite possibly looking at the highest turnout midterm in ~100 years. That adds a level of uncertainty to the predictions game, imo. There is also evidence from the high-turnout special elections we had that not all Republicans can be expected to vote the same way (they might, but there is at least some reason to believe in higher-than-normal splits). So, when in doubt, I try to take the GCB into account as well. The fact that it is constantly hovering around D+7 - 10 and has been for over 1.5 years should count for something. And if that is close to the final result, it would be hard to see how that doesn't affect Nevada somehow.

[Virginiá]

Anyone want some North Carolina and Wisconsin numbers or should we wait until everyone cools off a bit?

INJECT THEM IN MY VEINS

Seconded:

[Virginiá]

This sh*t is just frustrating man. After all of Trump’s garbage how are rural areas turning out this hard

Uh, Trump's "garbage" is what's making them turn out hard...lol.

He's been remarkably good at keep his base together, but it has come at a price. Senate aside (which was always a long shot from day 1), they are on track to lose the House, upwards of a dozen state legislative chambers and Democrats actually have a reasonable shot at 10 - 13 gov offices. The election is looking pretty bad for Republicans, Senate be damned.

I'm convinced now that the only plausible event that will put a dent in the resolve of his supporters is a moderate or worse recession - something his supporters actually feel. Historically speaking, this is one thing that has always hurt even popular presidents. And if it happens in late 2019 or early 2020, there will be no time to recover before the presidential election.

[Virginiá]

Am I the only one who finds it odd that many people say they've learned from their mistakes in trusting political analysts...without considering that maybe the analysts have learned something from their own mistakes?

[Virginiá]

Its over for the GOP. There's nothing they can do to turn back the tide. Frankly, its been over for awhile now and all this frittering over early vote numbers and polling noise and Kavanaugh Bump nonsense is dumb. This whole election is nothing but a referendum on Trump and thats it.

I would like to know exactly what is causing this huge turnout. I can guess pretty easily what it is with Democrats (duh), but what about Republicans? What exactly is driving them to show up in force for a man like Trump? What series of events caused that? Because this doesn't seem normal for an unpopular president's party. Not that I think it will blunt the wave or anything - Democrats are hugely enthused and indies seem set to break savagely against the GOP, but still. I'd have expected Republican turnout to backslide a smidgen at least. I haven't kept up with all the data, but it seems in some places that isn't the case (ftr I think the GOP is currently running behind their 2014 numbers in FL, at least according to a graph I just saw earlier).

All I know is that if we have the highest turnout for a midterm in 50 - 100 years, it is definitely worth analyzing the crap out of.

[Virginiá]

The best answer at this point is summed up by the fact Trump is both massively unpopular but has the highest approval rating in the Republican Party since Reagan

Trump's approval rating among Republicans isn't that much higher than Obama's. Looking at Gallup polling, it's usually about 5-7 points higher than Obama's was among Democrats during a midterm year. The gap is even lower or non-existent in 2010. These were both years with either relatively normal midterm or historically low turnout.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx
https://news.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx

What makes you so sure that it's ''for Trump'' as opposed to ''against the left''?

Because midterms are referendums on the president and America is obsessed with presidential politics like none other (this goes beyond any one president). It is why there is a "White House curse" to begin with.

Just like his predecessors, for the time being, it all has something to do with him.

[Virginiá]

Is there actually any evidence for the theory that Trump brought new voters into the fray? Because I remember this being brought up frequently way back when and it was shot down. Even during the election, there was no massive surge of registrations that would point to that theory. And if they were truly new voters, there would have to be a corresponding jump in registrations that is out of the norm for any particular locale.

What it seems more like, and especially for Florida, is that Trump's base is just mostly Republicans and to a much lesser degree, some previously Democratic/indie voters he peeled away. Granted I doubt I've seen every analysis of the 2016 election, but I don't recall seeing any proving some non-voter surge. And it's really hard to miss a true influx of new voters.

[Virginiá]

The majority of people don't give a great deal of thought to downballot races. Unless a downballot candidate is especially well-known in their own right, they're more often than not at the mercy of top-ballot candidates' coattails (or lack thereof) the voter's feelings about the president. In Texas, I think the implications for downballot candidates will largely depend on who has the stronger influence: Ted Cruz or Greg Abbott? If people generally cast their downballot votes the same way they cast their Senate vote, that's bad news for the GOP.

FTFY