Happy Sunday, Kossacks:
I just got through early voting and am feeling hopeful and virtuous.
I voted in rural West Texas in a Hispanic grocery store. My partner and I were the only two people there to vote on a Sunday afternoon. So, today at least, Bill White is whipping Rick Perry in at least one precinct.
Nationwide, there are flickers of hope. I found this state by state roundup this morning on Politico, and it's helpful. Much of the data has been compiled the Atlas Project, a progressive group that many of you would recognize.
I am deliberately not linking to Politico because their headline was wingnut, biased, and misleading, but the data is promising.
The only concerns I see are Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and New Mexico.
Looks like we need a major Hispanic outreach effort.
It may be just me, but other state by state early results seem to show that we can still turn this thing around.
Take a look.
ARIZONA
Republicans cast 44 percent and Democrats 34 percent of the early votes tracked by the Atlas Project. The group warns that the data are heavily skewed toward the state's urban areas, particularly Phoenix's Maricopa County. More than half of the state's 2008 ballots were early votes.
2006 voter registration: 38% (R) 33% (D) 29% (Other)
2008 voter registration: 37% (R) 34% (D) 28% (O)
CALIFORNIA
More than a million ballots have been cast in California, 43 percent of them by Democrats, 39 percent by Republicans, according to the Atlas data. With Democrats holding a 44-31 registration advantage, that might not look good for them. But it’s an improvement on their performance in the 2006 early vote, when the parties each drew 41 percent. More than 40 percent of voters are likely to cast ballots before Election Day in a state with close races for Senate and governor.
2006 voter registration: 43% (D) 34% (R) 23% (O)
2008 voter registration: 44% (D) 31% (R) 24% (O)
COLORADO
Out of the nearly 200,000 votes recorded so far, Republicans cast 42 percent of them, to Democrats’ 37 percent, as of Thursday. In 2008, the early vote made up 80 percent of overall turnout. This could spell trouble for Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, but the picture is more complicated in the three-way gubernatorial race.
2006 voter registration: 36% (R) 30% (D) 34% (O)
2008 voter registration: 33% (R) 33% (D) 34% (O)
FLORIDA
In 2008, more than half of the vote was cast before Election Day, whether by mail or in person. Republicans so far dominate early voting this year, 53 percent to 34 percent, but most of the nearly 800,000 votes cast have been by mail. Democrats tend to emphasize in-person early voting and may gain ground as that goes on. Party breakdowns may be more relevant to the state's gubernatorial race than to its three-way Senate contest.
2006 voter registration: 40% (D) 38% (R) 22% (O)
2008 voter registration: 42% (D) 36% (R) 22% (O)
GEORGIA
There is no registration by party in Georgia, but based on voter identification tracking, the GOP says it has the lead in absentee ballots returned, with 58 percent to 26 percent for Democratic-leaning voters. Early voting swelled from less than one-fifth to more than half the electorate from 2006 to 2008.
IOWA
Democrats lead turnout, 46 percent to 38 percent, with almost 200,000 votes cast, according to official figures. More than one-third of 2008 turnout was early votes.
2006 voter registration: 31% (D) 30% (R) 39% (O)
2008 voter registration: 34% (D) 29% (R) 37% (O)
LOUISIANA
Democrats lead turnout with nearly 50,000 votes in the bag, 47 percent to 43 percent. But early turnout made up just 15 percent of the vote in the state in 2008. Voter registration numbers can be misleading in Louisiana: Democrats had a roughly 2-1 overall voter registration advantage in 2008, and John McCain still won by 59 percent.
2006 voter registration: 54% (D) 25% (R) 22% (O)
2008 voter registration: 53% (D) 25% (R) 22% (O)
MAINE
It's a tie: Each party makes up 37 percent of the 46,000 votes cast so far in Maine, where independents constitute the largest voter group. The gubernatorial race, which features Democrat Libby Mitchell, tea-party-backed Republican Paul LePage and independent Eliot Cutler as the three leading candidates, scrambles party-based equations. More than 30 percent voted early in 2008.
2006 voter registration: 31% (D) 28% (R) 41% (O)
2008 voter registration: 33% (D) 27% (R) 40% (O)
MARYLAND
While 63 percent of the ballots so far have been cast by Democrats and just 28 percent by Republicans, that's out of fewer than 5,000 votes — probably less than 1 percent of turnout at the end of the day.
2006 voter registration: 55% (D) 29% (R) 16% (O)
2008 voter registration: 57% (D) 27% (R) 16% (O)
MICHIGAN
There is no registration by party in Michigan. With more than 200,000 absentee ballots returned, Republicans say they have a lead, 35 percent to 18 percent. Atlas, on the other hand, says Democrats are up, 37 percent to 29 percent. One-fifth of voters cast ballots before Election Day in recent years.
NEVADA
Republicans have a slight lead in early turnout, 43 percent to 42 percent, out of the more than 160,000 early votes cast statewide through Friday, according to officials. That's despite Democrats' 42-37 advantage in voter registration. Democrats say their internal figures, which include mail ballots, show them up slightly. More than half the votes are likely to be cast before Election Day.
2006 voter registration: 40% (D) 39% (R) 21% (O)
2008 voter registration: 43% (D) 36% (R) 21% (O)
NEW JERSEY
Democrats cast 43 percent and Republicans 28 percent of the 66,000 early and absentee votes tracked by Atlas. But pre-election voting is likely to amount to less than 10 percent of the electorate.
2006 voter registration: 24% (D) 18% (R) 58% (O)
2008 voter registration: 33% (D) 20% (R) 47% (O)
NEW MEXICO
Republicans have a 47 percent to 44 percent lead among the 75,000 early ballots cast so far, according to data gathered by the Atlas Project. More than 60 percent of votes were cast early in 2008.
2006 voter registration: 49% (D) 33% (R) 18% (O)
2008 voter registration: 50% (D) 32% (R) 18% (O)
NORTH CAROLINA
Democrats lead 44 percent to 38 percent with more than 220,000 votes recorded. But that represents a decline from 2006, when Democrats led early voting by 48 percent to the GOP's 36 percent, according to Atlas. Early voting skyrocketed, from 20 percent to 60 percent of turnout, between 2006 and 2008.
2006 voter registration: 46% (D) 35% (R) 20% (O)
2008 voter registration: 46% (D) 32% (R) 22% (O)
OHIO
Democrats make up 44 percent to the GOP's 35 percent of the 400,000 votes cast through Thursday, according to statewide monitoring by Democrats. Early voting represented a quarter of the 2008 vote here; there is no registration by party.
OREGON
Democrats have an edge, 44 percent to 38 percent, among the more than 100,000 votes cast so far in this all-mail-ballot state.
2006 voter registration: 39% (D) 36% (R) 26% (O)
2008 voter registration: 43% (D) 32% (R) 25% (O)
PENNSYLVANIA
While Republicans have returned more absentee ballots than Democrats, 56 percent to 37 percent, those are likely to make up less than 5 percent of the final tally in the tight Senate race between Republican Pat Toomey and Democrat Joe Sestak. The rest of the voting is on Election Day.
2006 voter registration: 48% (D) 40% (R) 12% (O)
2008 voter registration: 51% (D) 37% (R) 12% (O)
WASHINGTON
In a state with nearly all mail balloting and no partisan registration, the Atlas Project data put Republican-leaning voters ever so slightly ahead of Democratic-leaning voters, 38.8 percent to 38.5 percent, but caution that few of the 200,000 ballots recorded in this sample come from Seattle's King County, the state's Democratic stronghold.
WEST VIRGINIA
Democrats constitute 55 percent to Republicans' 35 percent of the 42,000 votes cast so far, but that’s down from their 2-to-1 registration advantage. Early voting could constitute a quarter of the total vote.
2006 voter registration: 57% (D) 30% (R) 13% (O)
2008 voter registration: 56% (D) 29% (R) 15% (O)
WISCONSIN
Democrats lead, 43 percent to 23 percent, among the 28,000 early ballots, according to the Atlas data. Early voting is a marginal but growing factor in a state that has no registration by party: It increased from 8 percent to 21 percent of the vote between 2006 and 2008.