Early & Absentee Voting Megathread - Build the Freiwal

[IceSpear]

Kansas mailed ballots (as of 8:00 AM on 10/17):

128,220 Sent (compared to 133,822 in 2016; 89,285 in 2014)

GOP - 51,558 (40.21%)
DEM - 51,326 (40.02%)
UNA - 24,665 (19.24%)
LIB - 670 (0.53%)

Whoa. I can't imagine this is anywhere near typical in Kansas, right?

[IceSpear]

Ralston is claiming that turnout in Clark county today was 22,000 by 3 PM, over twice what it was in 2014.

https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1053789569621999616

Remember when tons of Democrats stayed home in 2014, a Republican wave swept across the country, Sandoval romped to a 50 point win, Republicans made big gains all across Nevada, and Adam Laxalt could still only manage a <1 point win with well under 50% of the vote? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

It also reminds me of that old tale when Dean Heller could only beat a corrupt lady under ethics investigation by 1 point with well under 50% of the vote while getting less votes than Mitt Romney did.

[IceSpear]

But Atlas, Nate Silver, and the "Experts" told me that Heller was going to win (even in a Dem tsunami!) because he beat a corrupt lady under ethics investigation by 1 point while getting less votes than Mitt Romney, he's an INCUMBENT, Rosen is a Weak Candidate™, and it doesn't matter that junky Nevada polls have underestimated Democrats in nearly every election over the past decade and that they should be taken at face value!

[IceSpear]

But Atlas, Nate Silver, and the "Experts" told me that Heller was going to win (even in a Dem tsunami!) because he beat a corrupt lady under ethics investigation by 1 point while getting less votes than Mitt Romney, he's an INCUMBENT, Rosen is a Weak Candidate™, and it doesn't matter that junky Nevada polls have underestimated Democrats in nearly every election over the past decade and that they should be taken at face value!

I was ridiculed when I said NV-GOV was more likely to flip than WI-GOV.

But Marist told me Heller will win re-election at the same time Evers wins by double digits.

[IceSpear]

Clark numbers aren't really that bad for republicans if you consider 2016 as a base year and not 2014. Even Ralston said that there are problems with taking 2014 numbers cause there was no competitive race. When we take Clark numbers (both early vote and absentee numbers) there is 4k difference and around 10% D lead. After week 1 in 2016 lead was 40k votes and 15%.

But Washoe numbers are bad for republicans. They would need much better showing there.

There was a competitive race in 2014, actually. Unbeatable Titan Adam Laxalt won the Attorney General race by <1 point. But I'm sure he'll win the governor's mansion easily in a much better D climate, because junk polls told me so.

[IceSpear]

Clark numbers aren't really that bad for republicans if you consider 2016 as a base year and not 2014. Even Ralston said that there are problems with taking 2014 numbers cause there was no competitive race. When we take Clark numbers (both early vote and absentee numbers) there is 4k difference and around 10% D lead. After week 1 in 2016 lead was 40k votes and 15%.

But Washoe numbers are bad for republicans. They would need much better showing there.

There was a competitive race in 2014, actually. Unbeatable Titan Adam Laxalt won the Attorney General race by <1 point. But I'm sure he'll win the governor's mansion easily in a much better D climate, because junk polls told me so.

The AG race? No offense but AG races across the country do not really inspire people to turn out in droves to the polls.

Exactly. It was pathetic that Laxalt could only win by less than a point despite Dem turnout being anemic in Nevada.

[IceSpear]

This is a pretty interesting bit from Ralston's early vote in Nevada blog:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

If an uninspiring candidate like Rosen can pull this off with new voters and "missing" voters, just imagine what dynamic candidates like Abrams and Gillum can do.

Or maybe Rosen just isn't the weak candidate Atlas thinks she is? Crazy thought, I know, but I like to be Bold.

[IceSpear]

Atlas' obsession with diminishing Rosen has been one of the most amusing parts of this cycle for me. Gonna be fun watching the same people deal with her as a senator post-election.

We'll hear lots of hot takes about how Heller ran a terrible campaign and how any Democrat with a pulse could've beaten him. Depending on how good of a night Democrats have, there could be some truth to that, but Rosen really hasn't been a bad candidate. People just forget very quickly how bad polling in Nevada is.

It wouldn't be the first time Atlas's judgment of Candidate Quality™ and Campaign Quality™ did a 180 the second the election results came in.

[IceSpear]

Imagine a world where a male Democrat had picked up a Trump-won seat in NV-3 in 2016 of all years and then run for Senate. Atlas would be declaring them the star candidate of the cycle

LOL, so true.

Actually, this did sort of happen with Patrick Murphy in 2016. He was an extremely Strong Candidate™ and a Great Recruit™, then he lost and in retrospect became a Weak Candidate™ who ran a Weak Campaign™. Gotta love hindsight bias and outcome bias!

[IceSpear]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/republicans-outpacing-democrats-early-voting-key-states-nbc-news-finds-n922881?cid=sm_npd_ms_fb_ma

GOP-affiliated voters have surpassed Democratic-affiliated ones in early voting in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Montana, Tennessee and Texas, the data showed.

I mean, isn't that expected in all of those states? If Dems are winning any of those states it's going to be due to good to amazing margins among independents.

[IceSpear]

The numbers in Arizona are brutal -
http://www.arizona.vote/early-ballot-statistics

Republican landslide in Maricopa county, 117,000 to 75,000.

What Beet isn't telling you is that the edge in terms of percentage was larger for the Republicans (it was about 14%) a few days ago, and now it's 12.3% (44.7-32.4). Republicans have a big registration advantage in Arizona, this is to be expected.

How big of a lead did the Republicans have in the AZ-08 special before Lesko only ended up winning by 5%? I feel like it was like over 25%.

Yeah, people tend to forget this. That's not to say that the same gap will be present all across the state (otherwise Sinema would be winning in a landslide), but it's definitely important to keep in mind.

[IceSpear]

It's funny that people are making the assumption that independents are going to give Heller the same margin they gave Trump when independents pretty much everywhere have swung D since 2016, sometimes massively.

[IceSpear]

It's funny that people are making the assumption that independents are going to give Heller the same margin they gave Trump when independents pretty much everywhere have swung D since 2016, sometimes massively.

Who makes this assumption?

There's been tons of hand wringing in this thread about how Heller has this in the bag because the Dem advantage in ballots cast isn't large enough. The only way it "isn't large enough" is if you assume independents go big for Heller.

[IceSpear]

Clearly it is great news for the incumbent Republican Senator that more Democrats are voting than Republicans. #analysis

[IceSpear]

Rosen is still probably going to win and AZ is still a toss up, but it is true that these EV numbers aren't really consistent with any kind of massive Democratic tidal wave. Not that I ever thought that would happen to begin with.

[IceSpear]

Of course Rosen and Sisolak aren't doomed or anything, but this doesn't justify the level of confidence some posters are having about this race.

Please tell me NV Dems are not going to blow this. I should be able to be supremely confident about NV. This is not 2010 or 2014, the national environment is good and demographics have continued to shift Dem more quickly in NV than anywhere else. I don't want to have to worry about NV, and shouldn't have to. WTF is wrong with them if this is even a question?

I mean, as of now there's little reason to think Heller will win unless you think he's going to clean up among independents. And if Dean Heller of all people is cleaning up among independents, I doubt Dems will be having a rosy night overall.

[IceSpear]

While everyone was freaking out about the "Dems in disarray" in Nevada because they're not leading by enough, Democrats gained a couple hundred votes thanks to absentees in Clark. Statewide lead is 3.4K. We'll see if they get to 15K statewide, but the way Independents have been voting this year, I'm not sure they'll need to.

Maybe I'm the idiot and am missing something incredibly obvious here, but as you said, I don't see why Dems need a ridiculously gaudy vote margin otherwise the Unbeatable Titan is inevitable. They ended up needing it in 2016, but that was because independents broke heavily for Trump. The idea that they'd need it again seems to be predicated upon the assumption that they will also break heavily for Heller, which...is certainly not a safe one.

[IceSpear]

I think you'll need a reminder what kinds of posts have been written here on day 1 of EV when those numbers favored Dems.

So don't put cold water on these numbers now when they aren't so good for Dems. And if the weekend goes well for them we will see those posts again I'm sure.

Just a fact that we are now talking about how independents will break and how many crossover votes will be and talking about cannibalizing votes in rurals is all you need to know right now about the state of this race which was supposed to be in this kind of year already in the bag for Democrats.

Right, the EV is certainly not at the point where Rosen is guaranteed to win, but from the hysterical reactions of some of the posters here you would think Heller already had it in the bag. And yes, the early reactions were also hysterical. I guess that's the one common thread here.

[IceSpear]

Right, the EV is certainly not at the point where Rosen is guaranteed to win, but from the hysterical reactions of some of the posters here you would think Heller already had it in the bag. And yes, the early reactions were also hysterical. I guess that's the one common thread here.

To me, it seems perfectly reasonable to by hysterical if Rosen is not guaranteed to win. Rosen should be guaranteed to win by all rights. It is not about Heller having it in the bag. It is about Rosen not having it in the bag, which is really pathetic. Don't succumb to the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Eh, fair enough I guess. I guess if you were hoping for/expecting a massive wave something like this would put a damper on it, but I never expected it to be a tsunami. And to me Rosen still looks on track to win, albeit by a smaller margin than I would've predicted a week ago.

Plus, we still have a lot of time left before this EV data is final.

[IceSpear]

Right, the EV is certainly not at the point where Rosen is guaranteed to win, but from the hysterical reactions of some of the posters here you would think Heller already had it in the bag. And yes, the early reactions were also hysterical. I guess that's the one common thread here.

To me, it seems perfectly reasonable to by hysterical if Rosen is not guaranteed to win. Rosen should be guaranteed to win by all rights. It is not about Heller having it in the bag. It is about Rosen not having it in the bag, which is really pathetic. Don't succumb to the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Eh, fair enough I guess. I guess if you were hoping for/expecting a massive wave something like this would put a damper on it, but I never expected it to be a tsunami. And to me Rosen still looks on track to win, albeit by a smaller margin than I would've predicted a week ago.

Plus, we still have a lot of time left before this EV data is final.

A wave isn't winning by large margins...a wave is when all the close states break your way. NV and AZ were never going to be large margin wins...but in a wave they will both break to the DEMS.

AZ was never going to be a large win? Atlas told me otherwise in the summer, lol.

[IceSpear]

What's going on in Waukesha County?

My guess is Republicans who are fired up to vote for Walker that weren't fired up to vote for Trump. But that's nothing we didn't already know. Walker would be DOA if he was showing any weakness in WOW.

[IceSpear]

This sh*t is just frustrating man. After all of Trump’s garbage how are rural areas turning out this hard

Uh, Trump's "garbage" is what's making them turn out hard...lol.

[IceSpear]

This sh*t is just frustrating man. After all of Trump’s garbage how are rural areas turning out this hard

Uh, Trump's "garbage" is what's making them turn out hard...lol.

That hasn’t been the case in VA-Gov, AL-Sen, or PA-18. There was noticeable rural drop off

This is the VA-Gov swing map from 2013 to 2017, going from D+3 to D+9 statewide:



And here's the Alabama swing map from 2012 to 2017, going from R+4 to D+2 statewide. Look at all those rural counties where Moore did way better than he did in 2012 even after being exposed as a pedophile.

[IceSpear]

Most of the Week 1 is in from Nevada, so it's a little easier now to compare it to the Week 1 vote from 2016. Everyone claims that, unlike other state, the Nevada early vote really is predictive. Here's what it looks like in aggregate right now compared to 2016:

Week 1, 2018

Democratic: 42.22% - 112,517
Republican: 38.84% - 103,496
Other: 18.94% - 50,472

https://www.nvsos.gov/sos/home/showdocument?id=5950

Week 1, 2016

Democratic: 44.50% - 151,020
Republican: 35.84% - 121,651
Other: 66,728

https://www.nvsos.gov/sos/home/showdocument?id=4543

The gap between registered Republicans and Democrats is actually smaller this year, which might seem counterintuitive. This race will clearly come down to independents. And before everyone automatically assumes they'll break for Rosen, it's worth noting that every recent poll has shown Heller leading among that group.

I still say it's a textbook tossup.

Actually everyone seems to be assuming indies are going big for Heller. Because if they split evenly, then Rosen wins easily.

[IceSpear]

It's only fitting that we're close to mischief night, because so many people, pundits, posters, pollsters, and "experts" are going to have cartons of eggs splattered on their face after Rosen wins. I can't wait.