Democrat Charlie Crist
In-person voting started in North Carolina on Thursday, while Democrats are preparing for a big get-out-the-vote operation on Sunday in Florida. For now, Democrats are seeing what they need to see in both states—something that can absolutely not be said about Nevada.
• Florida: Since it started on Monday, in-person voting has helped Democrats make up some of the deficit they faced among mail voting. They have narrowed the GOP's advantage among all voters who have already cast their ballot by 1-percentage point each of the past two days. As of Friday, Republicans have an advantage of 9.8 percentage points among the 1.5 million early voters.
During the last midterms, Florida Republicans ended up with an advantage of 14 percentage points among all early voters. And this year's gap should continue to shrink as more Floridians vote in-person and offset absentee ballots. In fact, Florida Democrats have historically turned out at a higher pace over weekends thanks to their “souls to the polls” Sunday push, so stay tuned for Monday's report.
Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Democrat Charlie Crist's campaigns each wrote memos this week arguing that their side is doing great among early voters. As you can see, while Crist's memo primarily compares the current numbers to the 2010 cycle, Scott's memo primarily compares them to 2012. There is no denying that Democrats had a banner year in early voting in Florida thanks to Barack Obama's operation, but we also don't need this to tell us that Democrats face a turnout gap in midterm elections.
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Head over the fold for a look at early voting in Iowa, Nevada, and North Carolina.
• Iowa: Every cycle, Iowa Republicans progressively chip away at Democrats' early voting advantage as Election Day drew near, but Democrats keep a clear edge going into Election Day. But what the state's Thursday morning report showed was more concerning: Registered Republicans had returned more ballots than registered Democrats, the first time this had happened over the three most recent cycles. Today's report shows registered Democrats regaining a nominal edge of 0.2 percentage points, but that is far from the reserves they had banked in past years.
The promising news for Bruce Braley's Senate campaign is that Democrats have more ballots coming in the pipeline: After weeks of Republican gains, the Democratic advantage among absentee ballot requests has been steadily growing: Their advantage in the Friday morning report was 5-percentage points, up from 3-percentage points at the beginning of the week. Let's now see if the coming reports of returned ballots reflect this increased Democratic activity.
• Nevada: Is there any state with more dismal turnout numbers for Democrats so far? Clark County, home of Las Vegas, is the life and blood of state Democrats, who have had a very strong early voting operation in past cycles. But while registered Democrats have a double-digit voter registration edge in the county, they are now being outvoted. In fact, Republicans have now outvoted Democrats in the county for five consecutive days. Democrats had not been outvoted there for even a single day since 2006. Registered Republicans are also turning out at a quicker pace in the rest of the state.
The GOP's advantage is a product of voter disaffection rather than rising enthusiasm: 70,000 people have cast a ballot for now in Clark County, compared to nearly 110,000 at the equivalent point in 2010. Weak turnout in critical Clark County, home of most of the state's population, has put Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford in danger of losing re-election in the 4th Congressional District. Also at stake are two races that will determine control of the state Senate and several down-ballot statewide contests.
• North Carolina: In-person early voting started Thursday in North Carolina, and 118,000 voters took advantage on the first day. Fifty-one percent of them were registered Democrats, while 29 percent of them were registered Republicans. While Democrats have long enjoyed an edge in North Carolina's in-person early voting, their advantage this year is substantially greater than it was four years ago.
Unfortunately it is hard to compare these numbers to past cycles because state Republicans cut the early voting period by half, making it hard to compare these numbers to what they were at equivalent points of 2010 or 2012. But Democrats should also be satisfied that it took four days for as many North Carolinians to vote during the last midterms. Kay Hagan needs a strong turnout operation to win re-election, and this first wave of statistics suggests Democrats are getting their voters to the polls. Can they keep up this pace? We'll find out soon enough.
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