Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) needs strong Democratic turnout to win, and she may be getting it
Leading Off:
• Georgia and North Carolina:
For weeks all eyes were on Iowa, but attention is finally shifting to other states where the early voting stakes are high. In-person early voting began last week in Georgia and continued over the weekend—the first time ever that Georgians were able to vote on a Sunday. In Colorado, which is implementing a new all-mail voting system, ballots finally went out and some have already started trickling back in. In Florida, we have reached the mark of 900,000 ballots cast, and the numbers should quickly increase as in-person voting is starting Monday.
Let's start by taking a look at a potentially bright spot for Democrats, Georgia and North Carolina. These two Southern states are the only ones that release statistics about whether voters also cast a ballot in 2010, which can provide some rare hint as to whether these early voters represent a change in the electorate or just a shift in how voters prefer to vote.
In Georgia, 20 percent of early voters had not cast a ballot in 2010—and they're slightly less likely to be white than those who had. In North Carolina, an impressive 43 percent of absentee ballot requests have come from voters who didn't vote in 2010, and registered Republicans lead by just 4.6 percentage points among them compared to their much larger lead of 13 percentage points among repeat voters. These may be signs that an effective Democratic turnout operation is succeeding at turning out new voters.
North Carolina Democrats started unexpectedly strong in mail voting statistics last week, an anomaly given the GOP's traditional strength. For example, in 2010, Republicans cast 44 percent of mail ballots versus just 35 percent for Democrats. The numbers regressed toward the usual dynamic over the past week, with the GOP grabbing a 10-percent lead among absentee ballot requests.
But in-person early voting has not started yet—it will not until the last week before the election since state Republicans cut the early voting period—and when it does expect Democrats to close that gap.
Georgia is a perfect example of how the start of in-person voting transforms the early voting outlook: Nearly as many Georgians voted in the first day of in-person early voting alone—21,135 last Monday, October 13—than there are who have sent their ballots in by mail. As of Friday night, more than 90,000 Georgians had voted in-person, and as is usually the case, black voters are casting ballots at a greater share among in-person voters than among mail voters, so the latest numbers are more in-line with what Democrats want to see than they were a week ago, before in-person voting started.
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Head below the fold for a look at more early vote tea leaves from across the country.
• Colorado:
Among the 2014 battlegrounds, the Centennial State is seeing the biggest change in voting: For the first time, every registered voter was sent a ballot by mail. This has raised many questions on how this will affect turnout and polling models, and whether polls—which already systematically underestimated the share of Democratic votes in the 2010 and 2012 cycles—will accurately screen for likely voters.
This will make Colorado's early voting statistics especially interesting to track. Will turnout prove superior to prior midterms? And could this alleviate the much-discussed turnout gap among Democratic-friendly groups?
Unfortunately we don't have much of an answer to these questions yet because Colorado counties only started releasing statistics on Friday, and some counties are still reporting very few ballots. Denver, for instance, is only reporting 149. This may reflect both a delay in when certain counties sent out ballots, and a delay in how rapidly they processed them. Registered Republicans have a 15-percentage points lead among ballots that have been returned so far, but this disparity between counties makes it much too early to draw any conclusions. We will know more in the days ahead.
• Florida:
Nearly 900,000 Floridians had already cast their ballot by the time Rick Scott refused to come on stage because of Charlie Crist's fan. About 48 percent of them are registered Republicans, while 35 percent are registered Democrats.
This gap is nothing for Democrats to get alarmed by: The GOP has historically enjoyed a large advantage in mail voting. In 2010, it was 21 percentage points. Yet as I explained last Monday, these numbers are difficult to interpret for two reasons. First, Barack Obama's 2012 campaign made an effort to encourage Democrats to cast their ballot by mail rather than wait to vote in person. Second, a new state law requires that all voters who requested an absentee ballot in the previous election be automatically sent one again, which may or may not change voting behavior.
In-person early voting is starting on Monday in some counties; in others, it will only begin at the end of this week. It will be interesting to see how the partisan breakdown of in-person early voters compares to the 2010 cycle's, and whether the two changes I just mentioned made a difference in how registered Democrats prefer to vote.
• Iowa:
Ever since Iowa voters started requesting and returning ballots in mid-September, it looked like we were in for an exact repeat of past cycles: a daunting Democratic advantage early, followed by a gradual tightening as Republicans pick-up their effort. But the GOP has been substantially outpacing expectations.
As of Monday morning, 199,703 ballots had been returned, and registered Democrats outpace registered Republicans by just 1.9-percentage points. Among the 364,828 voters who have requested a ballot, the Democratic edge is a slightly wider 3-percentage points. These are steep drops from just a week ago, when the Democrats' advantage in these two categories was respectively 8 and 6-percentage points.
More importantly, this marks a big gain for the GOP over past cycles. At the equivalent point of the 2010 cycle registered Democrats held a 8-percentage points lead among returned ballots and the balance mostly stabilized thereafter. Another way of capturing this: Democrats have cast 19 percent more votes than the equivalent point of the 2010 cycle, while Republicans have cast 52 percent more. Far more Republicans cast voted on Election Day than Democrats in both 2010 and 2012, and the reserve of early votes is what helped deliver the state to Barack Obama.
Who are these Republican early voters, and do they herald good news for Joni Ernst? This is where early voting statistics become hard to interpret. They don't tell us whether these numbers represent an influx of new Republican voters who may not have voted at all had they not voted early, or whether reliable Republican voters are just voting earlier than usual. (The same question exists about Democratic early voters in Omaha.) After all, as the universe of early voters expands—and it has dramatically in Iowa—it makes sense for its demographics to converge with those of the overall electorate.
• Nevada:
In sharp contrast to 2010 and 2012, Nevada is not one of this cycle's high-profile battlegrounds. But Republicans are hoping to pick-up the state Senate, and fierce statewide battles are being waged for lieutenant governor and secretary of state. The first day of early voting statistics suggests that, now that Harry Reid and Barack Obama's names won't be on the ballot, Democrats may struggle to reproduce the strong turnout operation that carried them to victories in the past two cycles.
In Clark County, where almost three-quarters of Nevadans live, the first day of early voting saw just 10,000 voters; there were 17,000 in 2010. That drop seems to mostly affect Democrats. Registered Democrats have an edge of 150 voters for now, whereas they enjoyed a lead of 2,000 voters after the first day of early voting in 2010. As Jon Ralston points out, this turnout disparity could affect several competitive legislative races.
• Nebraska:
Democrats can look toward Omaha—the site of a hotly disputed House race—for good early voting news. As of Thursday, 22,000 voters had requested a ballot in Douglas County and a staggering 65 percent of those have come from Democrats, compared to just 21 percent for Republicans. Registered Republicans actually cast more early votes during the last midterm, so this is a big turnaround. This chart tells a very impressive tale of just how atypical it is for Democrats to bank this many early votes in Nebraska's 2nd District. It remains to be seen whether Democrats are getting new voters to the polls, or whether they have just convinced usual voters to cast their ballots earlier.
• South Dakota:
Last Monday, I asked whether Democratic hopes of defeating Mike Rounds may be hampered by the possibility that thousands of voters lock in their ballots before seeing the DSCC's new advertising campaign and before the competition between Rick Weiland and Larry Pressler potentially sorts itself out. But it's been striking to see that South Dakotans have been returning their ballots rather slowly: 12,126 had voted as of the state's last update, a number that corresponds to about 4 percent of the total number of voters in 2010—and an increase of just 4,000 voters over the past week.
• Other:
No state has voted as much as much as Montana for now: Nearly 78,000 have already cast their ballot, which represents 21.2 percent of the total 2010 electorate. Hundreds of thousands of votes have been cast in California, Michigan, Tennessee, Minnesota and Maine. But these states tend to not release comprehensive early voting statistics, making it difficult to say much else.
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