Early & Absentee Voting Megathread - Build the Freiwal

[ON Progressive]

We are all going to learn our lesson from 2016 and not overexaggerate the early vote numbers, right?

This is Atlas, so there’s a zero percent chance of this.

[ON Progressive]

https://twitter.com/conorsen/status/1047309260215005184

That seems encouraging, considering this means Abrams strategy is working so far.

[ON Progressive]

https://twitter.com/iastartingline/status/1049728581654450182?s=21

[ON Progressive]

Gwinnett County is rejecting a much higher percentage of mail-in ballots from Asian and African-American voters than from white voters. Of course.

https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/10/12/exclusive-high-rate-of-absentee-ballot-rejection-reeks-of-voter-suppression/

I am absolutely shocked! /s

[ON Progressive]

Over 10,000 people voted in Davidson County, TN (Nashville) on the first day of early voting.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2018/10/17/nashville-early-voting-turnout-midterms-2018/1675688002/

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[ON Progressive]

Some of the smaller counties in Nevada have already reported their numbers:

Carson City had 982 voters today, 47-35 Republican. Much higher than 2014's 594 voters on day 1, but those voters were 53-31 Republican in 2014.

Douglas had 639 voters today, 60-25 Republican. This is down from 2014, when Douglas had 903 voters on day 1. The electorate is also significantly less red, as it was 65-20 Republican in 2014.

Eureka had 25 voters today, 64-16 Republican. Again, this is down from 2014 (38 votes on day 1). It's also a lot less red, as it was a 72-13 GOP electorate in 2014.

Humboldt had 218 voters today, 56-29 Republican. This is up from 2014's 163 votes on day 1, but they were 60-23 Republican in 2014 overall.

Lincoln had 39 voters today, 56-28 Republican. This is exactly a single vote up from 2014 on day 1, but 2014's EV electorate here was 61-26 Republican.

Storey had 195 voters today, 52-27 Republican. This is up from 2014's 125 voters on day 1, and actually a bit more Republican (50-27 Republican in 2014).

White Pine had 81 voters today, 59-21 Republican. Slightly up from 2014's 73 voters on day 1, and a lot more Republican (was 51-35 Republican in 2014).

Dems have to be liking the less Republican electorates in most of these rural areas, and they should especially be happy with the decline of turnout in a couple of these areas.

[ON Progressive]

Democrats overperformerd in Washoe too:

https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1053834345922801664

That's very good news. Can't see Heller winning without him winning Washoe comfortably. Heller only won by a point in 2012 while winning Washoe by double digits, after all.

[ON Progressive]

Democrats overperformerd in Washoe too:

https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1053834345922801664

Democrats were ahead by a few points in Washoe in 2016 by the end of the first week, but if they're counting absentees, that probably means that Democrats were probably a few points ahead in the in person vote today. It'll be interesting to see how many votes they actually got in Washoe and Clark.

The in-person vote was 49-34 Democratic today.

https://washoecounty.us/voters/2018electioninformation/18_gen_ab_ev_reports.php

[ON Progressive]

Another tiny rural county's early vote came in, Churchill.

Churchill had 595 voters today, 63-21 Republican. Up from 321 votes on first day of 2014, and roughly the same margin as 2014 (64-21 Republican).

Of course though, we are waiting for Clark County.

[ON Progressive]

Turnout hit 30K in Clark, Democrats with a 15-point advantage there too (48.4%-33.6%), and a raw vote lead of about 4.5K.

https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1053879074802753536

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't like these numbers if I were Dean Heller.

[ON Progressive]

Turnout hit 30K in Clark, Democrats with a 15-point advantage there too (48.4%-33.6%), and a raw vote lead of about 4.5K.

https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1053879074802753536

What was the advantage in 2016?

It is D+14.8 so far in Clark early vote this year, it was D+14.4 overall in 2016. The problem for Republicans is that they're actually doing WORSE in Washoe than that. They're down 49.3% to 34.2% in the in person early vote in Washoe, which is D+15.1.

If Clark and Washoe are both giving massive early vote leads to Democrats, the Nevada GOP is absolutely toast.

[ON Progressive]

A better NV comparison would be to 2010 than 2014 where Dems actually had a functioning GOTV operation.

I'm just going to do Clark/Washoe since it is 2:30 AM where I am and those two are north of 80% of the state population anyway

Overall 2010 EV in Clark: 46.2% Democratic, 37.4% Republican, 16.4% Other (D+8.8)
Overall 2010 EV in Washoe: 44.7% Republican, 40.3% Democratic, 15% Other (R+4.4)

Looks like Clark is doing significantly better so far compared to 2010, nevermind Washoe. I'm still floored by how good our Washoe numbers were today.

[ON Progressive]

The Clark numbers are now up. Elko also came in, and while 435 may sound laughable, that’s not too far off from the 2016 number. Only problem for Republicans is that the margin is less Republican than it was for the first week of 2016.

So let’s see here:
1) rural areas not looking great for Rs
2) Dems dominating in Clark/Washoe

This could get bad for the GOP if things don’t change, and they rarely do in NV early vote.

[ON Progressive]

This is a pretty interesting bit from Ralston's early vote in Nevada blog:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[ON Progressive]

https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1054160972158357504

Scary numbers for the GOP.

Ralston going hard against his own reporting that 2014 isn't good year to compare.

His own reporting said this:

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If you compare to 2010, Clark turnout on the first Sunday of in-person early voting was 12,572. So this is roughly 4500 more than that at 3 PM today, and there's another 5 hours before everything is closed.

[ON Progressive]

Washoe numbers are in.

That's a 46.64-35.99 Democratic lead. Democrats leading Washoe early vote by double digits in the first two days is amazing.

[ON Progressive]

Looks like turnout was about 23.7K in Clark, but Democrats had a smaller advantage. About 10.4K-8.8K. Their overall advantage for in-person voting in Clark is now 46.5% to 35.1%, smaller than it is in Washoe.

It's amazing that Washoe is more Democratic than Clark so far.

[ON Progressive]

https://twitter.com/ralstonreports/status/1054253089731969024?s=21

This is rather disappointing, to be honest.

[ON Progressive]

More from TX (also Houston area, in a Hispanic neighborhood):

https://twitter.com/JeremySWallace/status/1054400878373990401

It is hard to tell from that video how many of the voters are Hispanic, though.

I did see that the NBC/WSJ poll had 71% of Hispanic/Latino voters with a 9 or 10 in enthusiasm, which was actually more than white or black voters. If voter enthusiasm is that high among Hispanics, one must wonder if we might be underestimating Democratic odds in races where Latinos/Hispanics are important like TX-Sen, TX-23, AZ-Sen, CA-21, etc.

[ON Progressive]

One of the bigger rural counties updated in NV for day 1, Nye county. Turnout was way higher than in 2014, 300 people voted. Party breakdown comparing with week 1 is somewhere along 2014 lines, Republicans outperforming by 3%

The rurals really don't matter as long as Clark/Washoe have decent turnout.

[ON Progressive]

More registered Republicans than registered Democrats voting early right now in Senate race states

However they also say that women voters have outpaced men voters in most states (tied in Arizona, behind in Nevada). Also suburban voters have outpaced rural and urban voters in most states (more rural in Montana, urban in Arizona and Texas). Unfortunately no comparisons to past years.

This is based on inane Targetsmart's "modeled partisanship". Not worth much.

[ON Progressive]

It looks like Harris County TX (Houston) is on pace to probably EXCEED 2016 PRESIDENTIAL election early vote turnout today once everyone standing in line votes.

And in 2016, the polls opened 1 hour earlier and closed 1 hour later.

Insane turnout in Houston so far, and apparently across much of TX.

Wouldn't Texas be the one state where you'd expect massive turnout to favour Democrats more than anywhere else in the union?

[ON Progressive]

https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1054558729935323136

Democrats win Washoe by a sizeable margin again. High numbers of votes as well.

Not quite as gaudy as the double digit leads from the first two days, but still D+7. These Washoe numbers are making it very difficult to see Heller winning, even if Clark isn't doing quite as well as expected.

[ON Progressive]

And as soon as I posted that, we get the BIG news.

South Texas/Hidalgo County

2018: 19,652 --- BEATS 2016 PRESIDENTIAL TURNOUT... IN HIDALGO COUNTY (92% HISPANIC)
2016: 18,526
2014: 9,930

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ON Progressive]

Should note that Democrats had a pretty decent early vote margin in Texas during the primary and then 500K more Republicans showed up on election day.

They actually lost the early vote in the Texas primary though. The problem was that the Texas SoS only publishes the top 15 counties in population, which are way more Democratic than the state as a whole.