Fivethirtyeight.com has a great report on early voting in Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. There is also some discussion of Pennsylvania and Virginia. LTG will love this story as it emphasizes the importance of the mountain west region.
Something to keep in mind while reading the report. When they say that early voting has already turned out 40% or 50% of the vote, they're basing that on 2004 turnout. Turnout this year is expected to be significantly higher mostly because a surge of new voters among the youth and racial minorities. This means that the big turnout numbers by themselves are good news for Obama.
One caveat: The Democratic party has made a point of getting their voters to vote early and by absentee ballot. The Republicans have not pushed this angle as hard with their supporters. So it is possible that while Democrats lead in the early voting, they will lose on election day itself. Consider my case. I voted early (over a week ago). But the Democratic party did not gain a vote by my doing so. I was 100% sure to vote and vote for Democrats. By voting early, I simply changed when my vote got counted not who it was counted for.
But if the Democrats have succeeded in getting their softer supporters to vote early, it could negate some of the benefit to John McCain that the slight tightening we're seeing in the polls right now.
3 comments:
Yes, this will monkey with exit polls
I'm not sure we're seeing a tightening, btw. I think it's just a fluctuation of sorts. RCP is at 6.4 Obama right now, smack dab where it's been most of this month.
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/08-us-pres-ge-mvo.php
Post a Comment