Here are the latest figures out of Iowa.
Well, folks, we have finally reached a point where we can do a real apples-to-apples comparison with 2008 in terms of ballots cast. Thank God for The Wayback Machine (also known as archive.org).
First here are the numbers for the absentee ballot requests:
Dems 217,964 (45.63%)
Reps 147,112 (30.79%)
Inds 112,131 (23.47%)
Oth 511 (negligible)
TOTAL 477,718
Here are the new ballot requests since the last report:
Dems +5,301
Reps +4,742
Inds +4,430
This is the fourth straight day that Democrats outstripped Republicans in absentee ballot requests. In this report we lead in ballot requests by about 600. In yesterday's report we led by only 300. This is a good trend, if it keeps up.
And now, here are the numbers for actual ballots cast:
Dems 147,234 (49.42%)
Reps 92,072 (30.31%)
Inds 61,833 (20.18%)
Oth 309 (negligible)
TOTAL 301,448
Here are the ballots cast since the previous daily report:
Dems +6,603
Reps +5,823
Inds +4,419
Republicans got within about 200 ballots of Democrats two days ago. In yesterday's report, Democrats bested them by over 300. In this report, Democrats cast about 800 more ballots than Republicans. In fact, Democrats have cast more ballots than Republicans in every single daily report since early voting began. Republicans were getting very close there for a while, but we have reversed that trend, at least for now. Currently, Democrats lead Republicans in ballots cast by 55,162.
And here is where the apples to apples comparison comes into play. By using the wayback machine, I was able to get a glimpse of their Oct. 27th report from 2008. What makes it an apples to apples comparison is that as of that report 304,316 votes had been cast, which is almost the same amount as you see here (301,448).
As of that 2008 report, here were the numbers:
Dems 50.1% (152,462 votes roughly)
Reps 28.2% (85,817 votes roughly)
Inds 21.7% (66,037 votes roughly)
Total votes: 304,316
So as of this report from 2008, Democrats led by 66,645 votes and in the current report, they lead by 55,162. That's definitely a difference, but not an enormous one.
And in the 2008 report, Democrats led by 21.9 percentage points whereas in the latest 2012 report they lead by 19.11 percentage points. Again, that is not an enormous difference. I imagine, though, that independents are not going to break for us in the same way they broke for us in 2008. In Iowa that year, we won independents 56% to 41%. http://www.cnn.com/...
Whatever the case may be, the numbers are looking strong so far in Iowa and let's pray that they continue!
Here is a link to the current Iowa report: http://sos.iowa.gov/...
And here is a link to the early voting statistics (nationwide) from that report in 2008:
http://web.archive.org/...