Early Voting thread.

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

Just curious from where do they post these daily updates?

https://dl.ncsbe.gov/?prefix=Press/2022%20General/NC%20Absentee%20Stats%20for%202022%20General/

Thank you! Is there a way to see partisan breakdown by county?

Sort of! All the information is available - all the raw data is here, I think (the "Absentee Counts by County" CSV file), but you'd need to be able to wrangle the data yourself in order to come out with counts: https://www.ncsbe.gov/results-data/absentee-and-provisional-data

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

Not going to take too much from Georgia’s Day 1 numbers but that breakdown by race numbers are not what republicans want to see.

Yeah, we'll have to keep watch but at least you can say that Black voters were energized to vote day 1. If that keeps up, bodes well for Ds.

Is Souls to the Polls a thing in GA? Be interesting to see how that effects numbers over the weekend.

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

https://twitter.com/GabrielSterling/status/1584330499933507584

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

Checked the NC breakdown for the first time in a while and the Dems are still outperforming 2020 percentage wise.

Where is this coming from? I see republicans over-performing by both modeled and registered party per target smart.

I think he means that Dems are outrunning their final EV percentage from 2020 (rather than what they had 15 days out). Dems finished up 2020 with 37% of the early/mail vote, they're currently at ~41%.

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

Do have final early vote totals from 2018?

For 2020, it was:

Early vote (mail ins):
2.47M (37.4% D, 37.0% R)
Return rate: 76.6% for Ds, 73.8% for Rs

So essentially, if Ds are in the lead by Election Day still, they could feel comfortable most likely. Election Day vote for GOP is the question though. Guess it depends on what the final # is (in terms of total ballots received)

Early + Mail in Arizona on Election Day, 2018:

Democrat: 538,855 (34.5%)
Republican: 633,540 (40.6%)
Other: 124,589 (8.0%)
Unaffiliated: 263,997 (16.9%)

I would caution against using these for any sort of comparison purposes, as partisan attitudes towards EV was obviously radically different back then.

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

What is the deal with TargetSmart? They say they pull their data directly from the state websites, so I don't get why people trash them here.

Their dashboard is great so long as you filter it for actual party registration/race/gender or anything else. The issue that people here have is that in states where partisan registration isn't available, they run early voters through a model that assigns them to a party based on race, past behavior etc. The part that really loses people is that TS won't "show their work" as to how the model assigns partisanship, so we don't know what it's doing to get those numbers.

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

People should feel free to use data to prove their priors, but many are misusing it to do so.

1) Those Ralston reports are based on the vote that’s in right now. Given that the GOP cleans up on Election Day, it’s absolutely brutal for there to be any scenario where Laxalt is within 1 point in the early vote. If 90% of the vote is early, that just means he needs to win Election Day by 10 points or so.

2) Comparisons to 2018 are only valid if there is evidence of the voting method pattern being similar to 2018 (primary results, polling, etc) I’ve seen examples of states where it resembles 2020, I’ve seen zero evidence of places where it resembles 2018.

I thought Ralston said Dems won ED in Nevada in the past, it’s just a low number.

Yup, Dems won ED in Nevada in 2018 with ~4000 votes. Republicans won 2020 by about ~16,000 votes. But I don't think either elections are fair comparisons to 2022.

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

Is there still no Clark mail drop?

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

Colorado update.

https://www.coloradosos.gov/pubs/newsRoom/pressReleases/2022/20221101GeneralElectionReturnReporting7daysout.pdf

Dem- 245,551 (33.05%)
Rep- 217,154 (29.23%)
Other- 280,230 (37.72%)
Total- 742,935

Relative big day as over 200,000 ballots were added to the total. Still trail 2018 total turnout at this point by about 60,000 votes. In 2018 Dems/Reps were in a virtual ties with Others trailing.

https://www.coloradosos.gov/pubs/newsRoom/pressReleases/2018/PR20181030BallotsReturned.html

I mean, I get this, but what else is there? Comparing a midterm and a presidential election also seems flawed. And Covid was way more prescient in 2020 vs now, and we have no idea how that'll impact turnout.

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1587558792970936321

wbrocks:

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

I'm not seeing anything in my numbers so far from WA to suggest R's majorly overperform the primary results.

Is what you're seeing similar to what TargetEarly is suggesting?

Right now, this is what they estimate for WA, 7 days out:

2018 - 828K - D 54, R 36
2022 - 869K - D 58, R 30

I would find it hard to believe that Ds are actually doing better than 2018 at this same time. Unless you're data is showing similar to what the primary this year showed?

1) Target Early is merely guessing the partisanship of Washington early and absentee voters. The only real voter data I've viewed from FL, AZ, NV, etc. indicates that Republicans are over-performing and Democrats are missing their numbers. 

2) Comparing 2022 to 2018 is erroneous. Trends in early voting turnout and demographics have significantly changed since 2020. Democrats had a 54.7-29.9% lead in the 2021 VA Race, 47-38% lead in 2020, and a 48-42% lead in 2018.  The Republican won VA in 2021, and lost in both 2018 and 2020.
https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/g2021?state=VA

3) Due to their campaign strategy, Democrats need to run up their numbers with huge turnout in the early vote/absentee/VBM. 

4) The real problem for Democrats is that they aren't able to retain/turnout many of their 2020 supporters, while Republicans are running up the Trump and anti-Biden (Presidential disapproval) Voters.  In VA, Biden won 54-44% in 2020, but the breakdown of these voters was 48-44% in 2021.  Also, Polls indicated that the undecided Indies/third party voters were leaning Republican.

Your first point makes an argument against using Targetsmart modeling, while your second point makes an argument BY USING Targetsmart modeling. Like, pick a lane dude.

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

I'm not seeing anything in my numbers so far from WA to suggest R's majorly overperform the primary results.

Is what you're seeing similar to what TargetEarly is suggesting?

Right now, this is what they estimate for WA, 7 days out:

2018 - 828K - D 54, R 36
2022 - 869K - D 58, R 30

I would find it hard to believe that Ds are actually doing better than 2018 at this same time. Unless you're data is showing similar to what the primary this year showed?

1) Target Early is merely guessing the partisanship of Washington early and absentee voters. The only real voter data I've viewed from FL, AZ, NV, etc. indicates that Republicans are over-performing and Democrats are missing their numbers. 

2) Comparing 2022 to 2018 is erroneous. Trends in early voting turnout and demographics have significantly changed since 2020. Democrats had a 54.7-29.9% lead in the 2021 VA Race, 47-38% lead in 2020, and a 48-42% lead in 2018.  The Republican won VA in 2021, and lost in both 2018 and 2020.
https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/g2021?state=VA

3) Due to their campaign strategy, Democrats need to run up their numbers with huge turnout in the early vote/absentee/VBM. 

4) The real problem for Democrats is that they aren't able to retain/turnout many of their 2020 supporters, while Republicans are running up the Trump and anti-Biden (Presidential disapproval) Voters.  In VA, Biden won 54-44% in 2020, but the breakdown of these voters was 48-44% in 2021.  Also, Polls indicated that the undecided Indies/third party voters were leaning Republican.

Your first point makes an argument against using Targetsmart modeling, while your second point makes an argument BY USING Targetsmart modeling. Like, pick a lane dude.

No I'm not.  TargetSmart is modeling 2022.  The results from 2020, 2021, and 2018 are election results.  We can extrapolate from exit polls and breakdowns of early pre-election day votes.  A Democrat split of around 55-30% among pre-election day voters is consistent with the results and polls.

That 54-29 number you quote is still using TargetSmart's modeling algorithm, from back when they were modeling the 2021 election cycle. Change the dropdown to "registered party" and see what happens. You can also see the eventual inaccuracy of their model as they have the "final electorate" (including eday) at 48%-35% in 2021 VA.

They've changed their model, so it might be more accurate this time, who knows? But I was just pointing out the inconsistency of your arguments.

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

Georgia:

Fairly decent improvement for Democrats along racial and gender lines in Wednesday's batch compared to the past few days. Largest weekday black vote share since Day 11; smallest weekday white vote share since Day 5.  

Worth noting that in-person turnout was approximately 125k, which means we saw roughly 20k ABMs returned on Wednesday. A total of 194,059 ABMs have been received, with approximately another 65k outstanding. That's a pretty good return rate at this point in the game by Georgia standards.

Perhaps we are going to see the final week's uptick in black share after all...

Day 17 AIP (+ABM) Voting: 145,009 voters cast ballots Wednesday, for a grand total of 2,092,284 votes.

Breakdown of Wednesday's voters:

Code:

85521 	White	58.98%
37961 	Black	26.18%
3241         Asian	2.24%
3308    	Latino	2.28%
14978 	Other	10.32%

82818	Female	57.11%
61724 	Male	        42.57%	
467          Other         0.32%

Total votes thus far:

Code:

1210711	White	57.87%
611330	Black	29.22%
37599	Asian	1.80%
36111       Latino	1.73%
196533	Other	9.38%

1155447	Female	55.22%
932168	Male	        44.55%	
4669	        Other	0.23%

Are there breakdowns by age? In Nevada we're starting to see the average age of the electorate trickle down as more and more young voters turn out. Is that happening in GA?

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

So far, at this very moment, what can we take away from the EV right now? Good? Bad? Ugly ?

Dems have big leads in key states, but we don't know what election day is going to look like and we have nothing meaningful to compare this EV cycle to. Big pro for dems is that not much so far indicates a massive turnout collapse. Big con for dems is that young voters are down significantly in the EV, with the hope being that they will turn out on ED (but that remains to be seen).

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

60-40 R-D/I split doesn't seem too bad for Ds - yet - in Maricopa, considering we were preparing for a huge influx of Rs today.

https://twitter.com/Garrett_Archer/status/1590004418019459072

The tweet is gone. Is this the one that said 100k voters?

It’s more like 40k, same 60 R - 25 I - 15 D split.

Should get bluer throughout the day, but probably not by much.

It looks like Masters is probably going to win.

Archer deleted the original tweet because he says he mistakenly was looking at data from the primary, not today.

So none of those numbers were applicable?

https://twitter.com/sfalmy/status/1590010785283313665