I have some good news and some bad news.
The good news:
I finally have the database ready through which we can determine how many likely, sporadic, unlikely, and new registrant voters Obama and Romney.
So tomorrow's update will DEFINITELY be packed full of data looking more deeply at who has voted - I already have the data, and it is just a matter of having the time to write it up.
But as a little preview, it looks like the vast majority of Obama's vote margin is coming where it matters - from people who are not "likely voters" who we know for the most part will vote no matter what. It is no secret that Obama needs to turn out "sporadic" and "unlikely" voters as well as new registrants in order to win, and it is pretty clear that he is doing a much better job of turning out these sorts of voters than is Romney.
They way I am defining these different categories of voters is as follows:
Likely Voter - Someone who voted in both the 2008 and 2010 General Elections.
Sporadic Voter - Someone who voted in either the 2008 or 2010 General Election, but not in both.
New Registrant - Someone who registered to vote after the 2010 General Election
Unlikely Voter - Someone who did not vote in either the 2008 or 2010 General Election, and who is not a New Registrant.
Moreover, we should ALSO be able to determine how many likely, sporadic, unlikely, and new registrant voters have not yet voted. A big question is whether or not Romney has a big pool of Republican Likely Voters who have not yet voted to draw on, who will vote on election day. Or alternatively, is Romney not going to have a large enough pool of Likely Voters to draw on on election day in order to overcome Obama's margin among the less-likely voters?
The bad news:
I only have time to throw updated charts up; otherwise today's update would have to wait until late tonight when nobody will be around to read it :).
Voting on Wednesday was again clearly lower than in 2008. The interesting thing about this, however, is that this is affecting both Obama and Romney. This makes me wonder whether some of the increased early voting we saw at the beginning of the early vote period may have been from people who voted early in 2008 in the last week shifting to vote early in the first week of early voting.
Click on the picture below for a full sized chart.
Early Vote Turnout Charts:
Previous NC Early Voting Diaries:
Day 1 & Methodology
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14