Early & Absentee Voting Megathread - Build the Freiwal

[wbrocks67]

Stacey Abrams may have been right about GA all along.

[wbrocks67]

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

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This is what makes me wonder about this year's LV screening model.

[wbrocks67]

Clark is in, 28K voted, but the Democratic advantage was about the same as it was on Sunday, about 44-37. That means a net gain of 2K from Clark itself, and Democrats are now ahead by 7.2K in the in person vote, 4.8K overall. They're padding to their lead, but they need to hope that unaffiliated voters are going to break Democratic, since a 7% win in Clark isn't going to be enough.

I'm starting to worry myself, if I'm honest.

It's only been 3 days. Dems still have a lead. There's a LOT of UA voters. Clark has nearly 20%. They could easily be breaking for Dems. Most polls show Indies breaking for Dems.

[wbrocks67]

The fact that Heidi is DOA but Heller could survive is disgusting

Not exactly surprising that ND is more Republican than NV is Democratic, but if Washoe holds up, and Clark turnout is high, I'm still confident Heller goes down.

But Dems aren’t running up as big of margin they need to in Clark

It's been 3 days.

[wbrocks67]

Nevada Dems lead is at 11k now. Hillary only won by 20k votes in 2016, so that seems pretty good right now assuming Indies also break for Dems.

Really interested to see FL #s. With first day of in person, they took GOP's overall lead down from 5.9% to 3.9%

[wbrocks67]

Nevada Dems lead is at 11k now. Hillary only won by 20k votes in 2016, so that seems pretty good right now assuming Indies also break for Dems.

What are you talking about?

We have to remember that Hillary only won by 20k votes. So an EV lead right now for Dems of 11k without indies is not bad if that stays throughout the entirety of EV, assuming Indies also break for Dems, which according to most polling, looks likely this year.

[wbrocks67]

Something about Arizona feels off. McSally has been acting for weeks like she is down and desperate while we haven’t heard anything from people like HotJosh that the GOP feels great in Arizona yet these #’s look like McSally has all but won. Maybe they are losing 8%-10% of reps and indies by almost 60% in their own internal

Can't really go off AZ earlies though. If you did that, Lesko would've been winning by 20% in April.

[wbrocks67]

Democrats have been consistently winning 60-75% of independents in high-turnout special elections all across this country for the past 2 years. I'm not sure why everybody is obsessing over simple D-R turnout figures; it is not going to paint a full picture. I'm glad we don't have them in my state.

Yeah, I know Ralston is an expert, but he seems to be focusing too close on the D-R gap. When he reports 45-35 in Clark, that means *20%* of Indies voted. That is a HUGE chunk, and they are going to make or break either side (I would assume Dems because that's what the polling has told us over the past 2 years)

[wbrocks67]

The way I see it in Nevada so far is that the Dems are doing better in Washoe then 2016, GOP doing better in Clark County and the rurals seem to be basically the same. Overall since Clark is bigger then Washoe, the balance favours the GOP but still it looks like it will be a tight election. Numbers look better for GOP vs 2016, but better for Dems vs 2014.

If compared to 2016, after week 1, Dem lead was 27,100 votes, so far after 5 days, Dem lead is 5,200 with some rural counties still to report for day 5, will only make a difference of a few hundred votes. Currently Dems are on track to get a 7,000 vote lead by end of week 1, down about 20,000 from 2016 levels.

In week 2 of 2016, Dems added another 18,400 onto their lead for a total early vote plus absentee lead of around 45,000, Clinton won the state by 27,000.

I would say at this point if Dem lead statewide is under 15,000 once early voting is completed, GOP will feel good, if it is 15,000 - 20,000, Dems will feel good, if its over 20,000, considering turnout in 2018 is probably going to be down 25% from 2016 levels, Dems will feel very good, as 20,000 lead with 25% lower turnout is more like having a 26,700 vote lead in 2016.

If Dems are doing better in Washoe, slightly worse in Clark, and the rurals are about the same, how was it so much bigger in 2016 (20k?). Are we just talking about proportions here though because the overall total was also bigger in 2016? (so thats why 27k seems so much bigger)

[wbrocks67]

So the latest update from FL shows still 56k vbm lead for republicans but democrats early vote edge has actualy gotten smaller.

168,548
165,601

In total with early vote (where not all counties are reporting but the biggest are) and VBM around 1,7 million people have already voted.

It would be really fantastic if Dems would freaking return their ballots.

[wbrocks67]

Is Clark just waiting to vote or something? I just find it odd that the GOP are the ones that are suddenly turning out in NV instead of Dems.

[wbrocks67]

Yeah, I think it's a bit understated how a Dem lead in Indies could change things, considering they are like 17% of the electorate right now.

HOWEVER, I wanna know what the hell is going on in NV and why Dem areas are just doing okay but rurals are surging. Where is the Harry Reid machine?! Where is the Dems absentee ballot campaign?!

[wbrocks67]

People need to quit freaking out about the Early Vote. Have faith in the fundamentals, national enviorment, and special election results not noise like this.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me that the rurals would be asleep for the last 1-2 years of specials and the 2017 election yet all of a sudden when it counts, the rurals wake up and the Dems that were angry just fall off.

[wbrocks67]

I recall some Virginia insider in the know was predicting a Northam landslide in the early morning based on turnout, then by the afternoon was saying things were neck in neck. I never trust what these people say. Just find out when the votes are counted.

OMG. I remember that. He did come back around in the late afternoon saying he thought a win was still very likely, but his tone changed dramatically in literally a matter of hours that day. It was an emotional rollercoaster lol

[wbrocks67]

Its over for the GOP. There's nothing they can do to turn back the tide. Frankly, its been over for awhile now and all this frittering over early vote numbers and polling noise and Kavanaugh Bump nonsense is dumb. This whole election is nothing but a referendum on Trump and thats it.

I would like to know exactly what is causing this huge turnout. I can guess pretty easily what it is with Democrats (duh), but what about Republicans? What exactly is driving them to show up in force for a man like Trump? What series of events caused that? Because this doesn't seem normal for an unpopular president's party. Not that I think it will blunt the wave or anything - Democrats are hugely enthused and indies seem set to break savagely against the GOP, but still. I'd have expected Republican turnout to backslide a smidgen at least. I haven't kept up with all the data, but it seems in some places that isn't the case (ftr I think the GOP is currently running behind their 2014 numbers in FL, at least according to a graph I just saw earlier).

All I know is that if we have the highest turnout for a midterm in 50 - 100 years, it is definitely worth analyzing the crap out of.

This is a good point. You'd expect Dems to turn out because they're out of power. And even when the president had a ~45% approval overall, his party still didn't turn out that great (look at Obama in 2010), so with Trump's approval at 41-43% right now, it's odd that the GOP would be so willing to come out. It's also possible that people are just more engaged this cycle than a usual midterm since its so hyped up, and that Trump has been out there way more than a normal president is. His base is smaller than it was, but it's possible that a lot of his base is still coming out and a regular GOPers are still engaged.

But yeah, I'd still be surprised if GOP had even a *regular* turn out this year, since history tell us that is pretty much never the case for the party of power.

[wbrocks67]

Ralston thinks the Republicans are canibalizing their vote. Pretty good recent blog post. Still not all peaches for the Democrats as only 12% of the early vote so far is under 40.

I can't imagine a large portion of EV voters being <30. For any state.

[wbrocks67]

Eh, those AZ numbers still suck.  Wasn't the GOP lead in EV in the low-single digits before Election Day (where Trump still eked out a 4% victory)?!

AZ is wonky. I hate to keep bringing up AZ-08, but... AZ-08. Not to mention Election Day this year actually favored the Dems.

[wbrocks67]

Pennsylvania is a bad example. There is no early voting. Just absentees, which skew old

[wbrocks67]

Ralston said in a post this morning that he still considers NV-SEN a tossup, so apparently he agrees with me on that. I still think people are obsessing too much over the Clark "firewall" and not looking at the state as a whole. Democrats are leading statewide by only 12,000 votes, which is a far cry from 2016's ~45,000 EV statewide advantage. Their percentage lead is about 2.6% right now, and I know Ralston once remarked that either party has a legitimate shot as long as the margin stays below 3%.

Although if there's one more poll showing Rosen ahead, I would tilt this race in her favor.

Comparing overall #s is useless considering turnout was higher in 2016. Not to mention, there's still 3 days left.

[wbrocks67]

Ralston said in a post this morning that he still considers NV-SEN a tossup, so apparently he agrees with me on that. I still think people are obsessing too much over the Clark "firewall" and not looking at the state as a whole. Democrats are leading statewide by only 12,000 votes, which is a far cry from 2016's ~45,000 EV statewide advantage. Their percentage lead is about 2.6% right now, and I know Ralston once remarked that either party has a legitimate shot as long as the margin stays below 3%.

Although if there's one more poll showing Rosen ahead, I would tilt this race in her favor.

Not to mention Trump won Indies in 2016, and I doubt Reps win them this year.

[wbrocks67]

Dems actually did much better this Halloween than last time

https://twitter.com/sorceror43/status/1057861027713310720

I'd say +10D then for Halloween this year is pretty damn good.

[wbrocks67]

Democrats gained almost another point in Arizona:

https://twitter.com/Garrett_Archer/status/1058071032664215552

Still not good, given that Dems ended early voting with a 4-5 point deficit behind Republicans.  Democrats are going to have to turn out like crazy today and tomorrow to have a chance.

Again, you don't know how people are voting. Or how Indies are voting.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/mcpli/status/1058109957302861831

But I was told Latinos weren't turning out by every pundit out there

[wbrocks67]

I want Democrats to put this race away. They are clearly not doing that. We'll have to rely on the independents to actually win this, and I don't want to bet on independents.

Maybe you should wait for Ralston's final report every night before you start freaking out. Dems added over 4k today.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/JohnRSamuelsen/status/1058200331765645314

Assuming this holds for every state and actual Election Day, it doesn't surprise me at all. Most young people are going to vote late or on election day. The takes about the early vote having no youth surge were always dumb.