Early & Absentee Voting Megathread - Build the Freiwal

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Those early voting numbers look rough. Looks like the Kavanaugh bump stuck.

They do look rough. For the Republicans.

If you know what you are looking at and have realistic expectations, these are great #s for Dems.

For example:

Wisconsin ---

59.53% of the voters are Seniors and 90.63% white, but Modeled GOP only has a 3% lead over Modeled Dem. That is amazing for Dems - if it is at all close among a voters skewed that strongly Senior/White in WI, expect a Dem landslide.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

It looks like Harris County TX (Houston) is on pace to probably EXCEED 2016 PRESIDENTIAL election early vote turnout today once everyone standing in line votes.

https://twitter.com/zachdespart/status/1054486924197539840

And in 2016, the polls opened 1 hour earlier and closed 1 hour later.

Insane turnout in Houston so far, and apparently across much of TX.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

While I'd normally point out that extremely high turnout (2016-like turnout) would imply that Republicans are turning out in high numbers as well, the fact is, if turnout is like this in Texas, that probably means that a lot of new voters or "unlikely" voters are turning out, which definitely helps Democrats more.

Yeah, there is no way high turnout is bad for Dems in TX. Either it is more people who would normally vote either later in the early voting period or on election day deciding to vote earlier this time (in which case it makes no difference, since they would vote anyway), or else it is people who do not normally vote, which in TX skews way more Dem. Most likely, it is some combination of those two things.

As an example of this, Republicans currently have a lead in the TargetSmart modeled partisanship in TX of 11,052 voters (56,783 to 45,731).

But that lead is almost entirely from voters that TargetSmart categorizes as "Super Voters" - about 14% of registered voters who will always vote no matter what. Just among Super Voters, Rs have a lead of 10,895 voters (37,559 to 26,664).

But among the other 86% of registered voters, people who are NOT super voters (Frequent, Infrequent, and New voters), it is basically dead even: 19,224 modeled GOP to 19,067 modeled Dem.


And remember, all of this is just among absentee ballots by mail, and is 97.48% made up of people age 65+. This is without any of the in-person votes cast today.

!!!!!!!!!

So it will be very interesting to see the #s when in-person early voting starts to get added in.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Here's a round up on final #s for 1st day early voting in many/most of the major big metro counties in TX. Across all these counties, they basically either came very close to 2016 turnout, or even BEAT it:

Austin/Travis County - They beat the 2016 Presidential election... in a midterm...

2018: 47,405
2016: 47,109
2014: 17,181



Houston/Harris County

2018: 63,188
2016: 67,471
2014: 20,215


Dallas/Dallas County

2018: 57,080
2016: 58,775
2014: 13,036




San Antonio/Bexar County

2018: 34,021
2016: 35,431
2014: 13,436




Fort Worth/Tarrant County

2018: 38,430* (apparently unofficial, might increase)
2016: 43,140
2014: 13,466


North Dallas-Fort Worth Suburbs/Denton County - another NUT...

2018: 17,278
2016: 16,963
2014: 5,372







North Austin Suburbs/Williamson County - another NUT...

2018: 20,711
2016: 18,103
2014: 4,267

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

And as soon as I posted that, we get the BIG news.

South Texas/Hidalgo County

2018: 19,652 --- BEATS 2016 PRESIDENTIAL TURNOUT... IN HIDALGO COUNTY (92% HISPANIC)
2016: 18,526
2014: 9,930


THE HISPANICS ARE VOTING OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!


THE HISPANICS ARE VOTING OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

And as soon as I posted that, we get the BIG news.

South Texas/Hidalgo County

2018: 19,652 --- BEATS 2016 PRESIDENTIAL TURNOUT... IN HIDALGO COUNTY (92% HISPANIC)
2016: 18,526
2014: 9,930

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As a precautionary measure, I am changing my username. If this first day of voting is not just a blip and Hispanics actually vote at Presidential + levels, things could get interesting.

Reportedly there was very high turnout in El Paso too (also obviously overwhelmingly Hispanic and Beto's home turf), not sure of the exact numbers but maybe I'll try to check for them now.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

OK, for El Paso I don't have an exact #, but a news article says "more than 15,000" and that it is higher than 2016.

https://www.kvia.com/news/texas/early-voting-in-texas-begins-with-lines-strong-turnout/818526327

You must be logged in to read this quote.

El Paso/El Paso County

2018: Unknown HIGHER than 16,117
2016: 16,117
2014: 2,817


So it is more than 5 times 2014 levels...

So yeah, looks like Hispanics are indeed voting (so far), to a MUCH greater extent than I would have expected based on historical turnout.

Truly crazy.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

As pointed out by a helpful posted on AAD, you made an error with the Hidalgo county numbers. You seem to be counting in person and by mail for 2018 but only in person for 2016.

The Hidalgo #s come from here:

https://twitter.com/RamiroGarzaTX/status/1054545179489853440

It is not entirely clear, but it sounds like he is saying the 2018 #s are in person only because he says "for day one"? If it were also including absentee mail ballots, then it wouldn't be just for day one - early voting by mail has been going on for days before this.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

These numbers in Texas do look pretty insane, but I'd be curious to see what more rural counties look like. If turnout is extremely high in ruby red Republican territory as well, that doesn't bode nearly as well for Beto.

This is indeed a very good question, but it is hard to tell because data on smaller/rural counties is less available in news reports, and as Gass3268 says, the TX Secretary of State only reports #s for the top 15 counties. So 2016 #s are missing for a lot of the other counties.

Here is a bit of an attempt to find info on smaller counties that nonetheless are not really rural (more small cities).


Lubbock - https://www.kcbd.com/2018/10/22/lubbock-county-voters-line-up-early-voting-with-more-than-new-registrations/

Lubbock County:

2018: 9,191
2016:
2014: 2,408


Amarillo - http://www.newschannel10.com/2018/10/23/first-day-early-voting-breaks-records-potter-randall-counties/

Potter County:

2018: 1,821
2016: 1,710
2014: 548


Midland - https://www.texastribune.org/2018/10/22/texas-early-voting-turnout/

Midland County:

2018: "3,546 had voted by 4 p.m. Monday"
2016:
2014: 756


Beaumont - https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Midterm-madness-Bigger-crowds-on-Day-1-of-early-13327388.php

Jefferson County:

2018: "As of 2:30 p.m. Monday some 3,290 people turned out to vote"
2016:
2014: 3,131


Tyler - https://tylerpaper.com/news/local/high-turnout-brings-lines-to-smith-county-polling-locations/article_cefec308-d650-11e8-9bfc-835d204962ee.html

Smith County:

2018: 4,963
2016:
2014: 1,577


Waco - https://www.wacotrib.com/news/elections/turnout-soars-in-mclennan-county-on-first-day-of-early/article_c913765f-4792-553a-a40c-7a36482166fb.html

McLennan County:

2018: 4,882
2016: 4,376
2014: 1,150


Temple/Killeen - http://www.tdtnews.com/news/article_2727dc60-d659-11e8-8099-c3b84aa4e830.html

Bell County:

2018: 5,783
2016:
2014: 1,580


Abilene - https://www.bigcountryhomepage.com/news/main-news/taylor-county-early-voting-numbers-smash-first-day-turnout-of-2014/1542793751

Taylor County:

2018: 3,361
2016: 887
2014: 3,247



So it is clear there is high turnout in these smaller cities as well. No doubt the votes in these places are more GOP favorable than in Austin/South TX, etc, but we don't know specifically who is voting in these places. I am sure that overall it must favor Cruz, but it could easily favor him by less than one might think if Dem turnout in those areas as well is unusually high. Beto has of course drawn unusual crowds even in these smaller city and rural areas that are not usually Dem at all.

The other very important question is - on both sides - is whether the people voting early are people who always vote, just voting earlier than usual, or if they are actual new voters and/or infrequent voters who don't normally vote in midterms. If Beto is bringing out new people, but Rs are just getting there usual voters to vote earlier, then GOP early voting turnout could be very high and it not make much of a difference. Overall though, I have to think that higher turnout is better for Dems in TX (maybe not better in some other states, but definitely better in general in TX).

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

To your comment on Texas, turnout was in fact record-shattering even in small, deeply Republican counties. From the Texas Tribune:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/10/22/texas-early-voting-turnout/

That's a percentage increase of 369% over 2014. (Midland County voted for Trump 75% to 20% in 2016.) By comparison, first-day turnout increased by almost 90% in Dallas County and by 176% in Travis County.

Both Dallas County and Travis County do of course have far more raw votes than Midland, but if smaller Republican counties across the board also see such astonishing spikes in turnout, it could negate any benefit for the Democrats.

The thing is...

Midland County isn't really that small. It is certainly smaller than Dallas/Austin/etc, but it has 165k people in the county. It is also 45% Hispanic.

Yes, it is traditionally extremely Republican. It is also traditionally low turnout... And that is part of the reason why it is traditionally so Republican (in addition to other things such as the importance of oil in the economy in west TX, the fact that Hispanic turnout has traditionally been so low is also a big part of the story).

So higher turnout in Midland is only good for Republicans up to a point... If too many of those Hispanics start voting, then although the R raw vote margin may increase, eventually you are going to start adding more Dems and start cutting down on the Republican % margin of victory.


And Midland and places like it may (or may not) be another story to places that are really rural-small town - counties with populations of maybe 20,000, 40,000, 5000, 500, etc. We have no indication of what turnout is like in those sort of really small counties.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Another big county in South TX (Brownsville area), which is 90% Hispanic:

https://twitter.com/RamiroGarzaTX/status/1054721491495866368

Los Hispanos estan votando en Tejas...

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Tarrant County TX (Fort Worth) tracks early voting turnout live, by precinct, and by the hour.

http://access.tarrantcounty.com/content/main/en/elections/Upcoming-Election-Information/Live_Turn_Out_Widget.html

So far today, in the first 2 hours of early voting, turnout was:

8-9 AM: 3,808
9-10 AM: 4,132


And that compares to these numbers in the first 2 hours yesterday:

8-9 AM: 3,436
9-10 AM: 3,739


So so far, it is on pace to beat yesterday, and by a pretty substantial amount. If that is happening there, it is pretty likely that similar turnout is also happening in the rest of TX as well today, so we should probably expect similarly high (and maybe even higher) Presidential-ish level early vote turnout today from other counties as well.


First we had Live polls from NYT/Siena... Now we have Live Early Vote

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

So far, including votes cast in the first 3 hours today, 54,772 votes have been cast in Tarrant County (Fort Worth, TX).

Using the precinct level 2018 early vote data and 2016 precinct level 2016 election result data, I calculated what the 2018 results would be if each voter in each precinct voted (on average) the same way as they voted in 2016.

This provides a measure of how similar the turnout is to 2016 Presidential turnout.

In 2016, Trump won the early and absentee vote 268,291 to 217,582 (52.8% to 42.8%).

With 2018 early vote turnout so far, if every individual voter's vote is split in proportion to the way that their precinct voted in 2016, that would be 29,290 to 23,060 (53.5% Trump to 42.1% Clinton).

That means that so far, the turnout distribution by precinct seems quite similar to 2016, with a small shift of turnout towards more R-leaning precincts.

However, this comparison includes absentee ballots by mail, which skew strongly R, and a somewhat higher share of those will be in so far than the proportional share of early votes in person that have been cast so far.


Bottom line - the distribution of turnout between Dem precincts and Rep precincts seems to look a lot like 2016.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

The TX secretary of state has updated official #s for turnout. Instead of just the expected 15 counties, they actually have 30 counties. Not 255, but an improvement at least in the data!

Overall, it looks like high 2016-like turnout basically across the board.

https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/earlyvoting/2018/oct22.shtml

https://twitter.com/mcpli/status/1054787414726766592



https://twitter.com/mcpli/status/1054793080258392065

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

That second graph is crazily similar for 2016 and 2018.

It is. I think the guy who made it must have accidentally included an extra county or something for 2018 though, because the overall #s on the Secretary of State website are slightly lower than 2016, not slightly higher.

Here are my own graphs separating out in person early voting and votes by mail.

In person:



Mail:



It is crazy that the default comparison we are looking at now is to 2016, rather than to a previous midterm!!!

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

You guys learned nothing from early voting projections in 2016, huh? It's only useful in very few states, like NV.

Regardless of what you think the results will be, the turnout in a lot of states is crazy high.

It certainly doesn't tell you the results, but it is interesting and informative.

On the other hand, if you don't find it interesting, then feel free to go away. Nobody is making you read this thread.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Some information on vote history of TX voters so far:

https://twitter.com/longhornderek/status/1054792918743998465



If this is reflective of all voters, I would guess it means that turnout will eventually slow down a bit. You would need more people who didn't vote in 2014/2010 voting for 2016 level turnout to be maintained.

However, vote by mail is overrepresented now, and I would guess that vote by mail includes more voters with good vote history than in person voting, so the in-person #s may include more new voters/non-midterm voters than this would indicate.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

You agree that it doesn't tell you results, but the conversations here indicate the opposite sentiment.

And no, I'm not going away.

When have I indicated that it tells you the results?

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I am not sure where this data comes from, but this is allegedly primary voting history of voters in Bexar County TX (San Antonio).

It looks like this must be only votes by mail, because 98% or so are age 60+

However, it looks like there is an awful lot of Dem primary voting history among those absentee votes:

https://twitter.com/PowerTo94865058/status/1054799876532383745



This is generally a Dem leaning county, but not hugely so, and particularly not among age 60+ voters.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

The Democrats are in some profound Trouble in Arizona...

Here are the latest Figures

Overall
R 227,653
D 164,738
I 113,464

510K Votes have been cast in AZ

Maricopa
R 154,773 / D 100,675 / I 73,520

Pima
D 40,874 / R 34,960 / I 21,465

Not sure how Data Orbital comes up with Sinema + 7 lead.

It is entirely normal for Rs to have a registration advantage in AZ, much like it is entirely normal for Ds to have a registration advantage in WV. Remember in the AZ-08 special, lots of people thought it would not be as close as it was on the basis of registration.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

The Blue Wave is officially dead (I know I said that before, but perhaps now people will listen). People are voting in 2016-level turnout. Didn't the Red Avatars here say that we needed a low turnout in order to the Blue Wave to happen?  

"2016-level turnout" is not a binary state.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

https://twitter.com/trowaman/status/1054838880912863232

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Not sure if it's been posted yet, but TargetSmart has uploaded EV data by state, age and other factors and is displaying its models (which again, don't be like NBC and confuse them with vote share). I thought there were maps on there too, based on his tweet image, but I haven't found them yet:

https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/

So basically all the absentee votes in ND so far are elderly Republicans?

Edit: also the maps are here: https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/map.html

Yeah, in many states that have restrictive laws for early voting by mail/absentee, those skew heavily towards older voters. Mail vote is very different in those states as compared to a state like WA, OR, or CO where everyone or large #s votes by mail.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

https://twitter.com/longhornderek/status/1054886777498959872

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I wonder what the % is so far for 1st time or atypical voters in both urban and rural areas. If reported, that would be the stat to look at as early voting progresses right?

TargetSmart suggests ~9% of TX voters so far had either never voted or voted infrequently. No idea about urban/rural.

State	New/Infrequent
AZ	18.8%
CA	21.1%
CO	14.4%
FL	17.0%
GA	18.4%
IA	15.4%
IN	13.3%
MI	6.8%
MN	17.5%
NC	15.0%
NJ	18.5%
NV	18.6%
OH	15.9%
TN	15.5%
TX	9.0%
WI	14.0%

Well below the average. I’ll be curious to see if that holds as (presumably) more of the EV shifts to in person rather than mail

The problem with the TX TargetSmart data (and TX Early voting in general) is that it is very decentralized. Each county clerk is basically its own fiefdom and keeps its own data (and stores it in different ways). So the early vote data has to be collected separately from each county. Particularly for smaller counties, that is not possible because there are so many of them. That means - in contrast to states like GA or NC with early voting and more centralized election administration - it is pretty arbitrary as to what is included and what isn't included, and what days it gets updated. You can see that on the map view with the TX data, if you go forward and back in time to see when it is coming in from different counties. Because of the difficulty with collecting data for many rural counties, the available data skews somewhat towards urban/suburban counties.

Right now it is about 75% mail ballots, and the mail ballots are virtually all cast by seniors (about 97.5% of them), because there is not no excuse absentee ballots by mail except for people over age 65. That also biases it somewhat to people with good vote history.