Your daily TargetSmart update. Seem like the Dems had a good weekend:
D improvement
AK, AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, MA, MD, NC, NE, NM, NV, OH, SD, TN, TX, VA
R improvement
AR, IN, MN, UT, WV
No change despite new votes
IL, MT
Top ten as percent of 2014 total vote
1. Texas, 69.9% (53.7 R)
2. Nevada, 62.1% (48.5 D)
3. Tennessee, 61.8% (64.4 R)
4. Utah, 57.0% (52.0 R)
5. Arizona, 55.5% (54.2 R)
6. Montana, 52.9% (46.7 R)
7. New Mexico, 46.6% (57.8 D)
8. Georgia, 46.3% (51.5 R)
9. Florida, 42.9% (49.7 R)
10. North Carolina, 38.7% (51.8 D)
New feature allows for a comparison against 2014 at this many days out (large percent increases likely mean there were very few early votes at all in 2014):
| State | % Ch Votes | % Swing |
| Alaska | +4% | R+6.8 |
| Arkansas | -1% | D+0.2 |
| Arizona | +53% | D+3.3 |
| California | +24% | D+7.8 |
| Colorado | -8% | D+10.8 |
| Delaware | +143% | D+13.6 |
| Florida | +45% | D+8.4 |
| Georgia | +170% | D+3.5 |
| Iowa | -1% | D+3.2 |
| Idaho | +70% | D+5.5 |
| Illinois | +64% | D+7.8 |
| Indiana | +178% | D+6.8 |
| Kansas | +66% | D+8.8 |
| Louisiana | +44% | R+12.4 |
| Maryland | +87% | D+6.1 |
| Maine | +41% | D+13.0 |
| Michigan | +47% | D+0.8 |
| Minnesota | +190% | R+1.7 |
| Montana | +53% | D+1.6 |
| North Carolina | +244% | R+0.4 |
| North Dakota | +36% | R+1.7 |
| Nebraska | +83% | R+12.1 |
| New Jersey | +166% | D+6.1 |
| New Mexico | +105% | D+15.5 |
| Nevada | +113% | D+14.5 |
| Ohio | +30% | R+0.1 |
| Oregon | -5% | D+6.7 |
| Pennsylvania | +135% | D+13.6 |
| Rhode Island | +44% | R+3.5 |
| South Dakota | +113% | D+4.5 |
| Tennessee | +371% | R+3.7 |
| Texas | +171% | D+7.3 |
| Utah | +187% | D+12.3 |
| Virginia | +201% | D+13.5 |
| Washington | -9% | D+7.4 |
| Wisconsin | +64% | D+4.5 |
| West Virginia | +76% | R+3.8 |
| Wyoming | +70% | D+7.9 |
| | |
| National | +75% | D+3.3 |
Excellent post. The new feature allowing for a comparison against 2014 is indeed great!
I will use this to hone in on the thing that seems most important to me in this - namely the crosstab between vote history and partisanship.
I will break down the overall swing numbers you provide by vote history category within the state. This provides more information to help answer the question of whether either Ds or Rs are more likely cannibalizing their election day vote (relative to 2014).
In general, the pattern seems to be that for the Dems, a greater proportion of the turnout increase Dems are getting (in terms of the Modeled Partisanship of voters) is coming from Infrequent Voters and New Voters in most states, while more of the increases in turnout Republicans are getting is tending to come from Super-Voters. This means Republicans are likely cannibalizing their vote (as compared to 2014) more than Democrats seem to be. There are some states that are exceptions to this overall pattern, however.
With that, let's look at this data for individual states (I am not doing this for every single state, only the interesting ones that also have a decent amount of early vote):
First off, Arizona.
AZ --- Super Voter --- R+4.1
AZ --- Frequent Voter --- D+1.5
AZ --- Infrequent Voter --- D+12.3
AZ --- Never Voted --- D+26.9
RI posted that the overall swing in terms of the modeled partisanship of early voters in 2018 as compared to 2014 is D+3.3, and if you take a weighted average of the swings I list above, you should come out with D+3.3. However, it turns out that there is a PARTICULARLY large and important variation in the size of that swing among voters with different levels of vote history.
Among Super Voters, there is actually a swing to Republicans of +4.1 as compared to 2014. Almost all of the overall swing to the Dems is coming from Infrequent Voters and people who have Never Voted. So this strongly suggests that for AZ, Republicans are cannibalizing their election day vote much more than Dems are, and Dems are doing a much better job than Reps of turning out new people who are less likely to otherwise vote on election day.
So, at least in comparison to 2014, this looks very good for Dems - much better than just the D+3.3 overall swing would suggest.
Keep in mind, however, that the "Never Voted" group is numerically much smaller than the others. Only 42,800 out of 837,583 early voters so far in AZ have never voted before (5.1% of the total). Generally most voters are either Super Voters or Frequent Voters, also with a decent # of Infrequent Voters (with variation by state).
CA --- Super Voter --- D+6.7
CA --- Frequent Voter --- D+6.5
CA --- Infrequent Voter --- D+5.7
CA --- Never Voted --- D+1.9
In CA, the swing to Dems is coming a bit more among Super-Voters, so Dems are probably cannibalizing a bit more than Republicans. But the differences between vote history categories are much smaller than in AZ.
CO --- Super Voter --- D+9
CO --- Frequent Voter --- D+11.2
CO --- Infrequent Voter --- D+14.4
CO --- Never Voted --- D+12.5
In CO, there are large Dem swings among all categories - it is a bit tilted to lower vote history, but not much. Looks very solid all around for CO Dems.
FL --- Super Voter --- D+6.1
FL --- Frequent Voter --- D+9.3
FL --- Infrequent Voter --- D+9.5
FL --- Never Voted --- D+15.1
In FL, we have the same sort of pattern as in AZ, but a bit less strong. There is a Dem swing among all groups of vote history, but it is definitely stronger among the lower vote history categories. So while both Dems and Reps are likely cannibalizing their election day vote somewhat, Republicans appear to be doing so a bit more relative to 2014 than Dems.
GA --- Super Voter --- D+3.1
GA --- Frequent Voter --- R+0
GA --- Infrequent Voter --- R+5.9
GA --- Never Voted --- R+0.6
In GA we have the first real major counterexample of the overall trend of Republicans seeming to cannibalize their election day vote more than Dems. The swing to Dems is all coming from Dem Super Voters. Meanwhile, there is a small swing to Republicans among voters with less vote history, as compared to 2014.
This is really not good news at all for Stacey Abrams, and is very good news for Brian Kemp. It suggests that Dems are cannibalizing their election day vote more than Republicans, and that Republicans are actually probably doing a better job of getting out their less likely voters than Dems are. That is really bad for Abrams since her entire campaign is focused around getting unlikely Dem voters out... So if more unlikely Reps are getting out than unlikely Dems, she is in serious trouble.
Note that this includes the Saturday voting data but not the Sunday voting data (where Dems did very well, but which is a fairly small raw # of votes).
IA --- Super Voter --- D+6.9
IA --- Frequent Voter --- R+1.7
IA --- Infrequent Voter --- D+4.2
IA --- Never Voted --- D+1.2
IA is showing somewhat the signs of relative Dem cannibalization - the Dem swing is largest with super-voters, and there is actually an R swing with Frequent Voters, and smaller Dem swings with the less likely voters.
IL --- Super Voter --- D+5.9
IL --- Frequent Voter --- D+7.6
IL --- Infrequent Voter --- D+16
IL --- Never Voted --- D+0.3
In IL, Dem swing is concentrated among Infrequent voters and also Frequent voters.
The "Never Voted" category is not the best for Dems, but keep in mind that this group is very small. In IL, it is also smaller than average (only 1.8% of early voters in IL have never voted). So the big Dem increase among Infrequent Voters is much more important than the small increase among Never Voted.
So this looks good for Dems.
MI --- Super Voter --- D+2.4
MI --- Frequent Voter --- R+2.8
MI --- Infrequent Voter --- R+1.9
MI --- Never Voted --- R+2.9
After GA, MI is our 2nd big exception to the general trend. The Dems have only improved relative to 2014 among Super Voters. Republicans have improved among all the less likely categories. This suggests a little bit of relative Dem cannibalization, and that Republicans are doing a slightly better comparative job of getting out their less likely voters than Dems are in Michigan.
So the early vote in MI doesn't look quite so good for Dems as most other states do.
MN --- Super Voter --- R+3
MN --- Frequent Voter --- R+1.5
MN --- Infrequent Voter --- D+3.9
MN --- Never Voted --- D+9.7
MN is sort of the opposite of MI. It shows a bit of relative Republican cannibalization, and Dems are doing a bit better in getting their new voters out (in comparison to 2014).
Still, (like in MI), the overall sizes of the swings are not as large as in the states with the biggest swings.
MT --- Super Voter --- R+1.7
MT --- Frequent Voter --- D+1.8
MT --- Infrequent Voter --- D+4.7
MT --- Never Voted --- D+1.9
The early vote turnout in MT looks modestly good for Dems in comparison to 2014. Republicans are probably cannibalizing slightly more than Dems, with Dems doing a slightly better job of getting out their less likely voters.
NC --- Super Voter --- R+2
NC --- Frequent Voter --- D+0.6
NC --- Infrequent Voter --- D+2.1
NC --- Never Voted --- D+6.8
Another case of modest Rep cannibalization, with Dems doing a bit better at turning out their less likely voters. Still, the overall swings from 2014 are small.
ND --- Super Voter --- R+3.2
ND --- Frequent Voter --- R+2.1
ND --- Infrequent Voter --- R+0.5
ND --- Never Voted --- D+15.5
The only good thing in ND for Dems is the "Never Voted." However, this is literally only 59 people, so it is basically meaningless. Even if the Republicans may be cannibalizing a bit more than Dems, they are just winning more than Dems here, it looks like... The early vote turnout is modestly good news for Cramer and modestly bad news for Heitkamp.
NJ --- Super Voter --- D+4.7
NJ --- Frequent Voter --- D+4.6
NJ --- Infrequent Voter --- D+9.1
NJ --- Never Voted --- R+12.3
Like in most states, the Dem swing is concentrated among Infrequent voters. Republicans actually have the swing in their favor among Never Voted, but keep in mind again this is a small group (3% of the total in NJ). Overall looks good for Dems, with the caveat about the Never Voted.
NV --- Super Voter --- D+8.2
NV --- Frequent Voter --- D+16.2
NV --- Infrequent Voter --- D+21.9
NV --- Never Voted --- D+14
Nevada looks very good for Dems all around - in comparison to 2014. There is a large overall swing to the Dems, and it is definitely concentrated among less likely voters. While Dems are no doubt cannibalizing some election day vote, Republicans are probably doing so (relatively) more so, in comparison to the overall size of the swing.
The only caveat is that 2014 was a horrible year for NV Dems, so the improvement would be less as compared to a more normal year. But overall, the early vote so far appears to be good for Rosen and bad for Heller.
OH --- Super Voter --- R+0.6
OH --- Frequent Voter --- R+0.9
OH --- Infrequent Voter --- D+2.7
OH --- Never Voted --- D+10
Quite small swings in Ohio, but at least for Dems they are doing a bit better among Infrequent and Never voted. Not really large enough to make much of a difference, though. Overall, simply because the swing to Dems is not large here, this is a comparatively good early vote state for Republicans so far.
OR --- Super Voter --- D+8.7
OR --- Frequent Voter --- D+7.9
OR --- Infrequent Voter --- D+1.7
OR --- Never Voted --- R+8.3
Oregon is another one of the exceptions. Dems are cannibalizing more than Republicans. This could be somewhat good news for Knute Buehler's gubernatorial hopes.
TN --- Super Voter --- R+6.2
TN --- Frequent Voter --- R+4.2
TN --- Infrequent Voter --- R+5.3
TN --- Never Voted --- R+6.3
TN is the biggest exception so far in that there are LOTS of early votes and they are ALL swinging Republican, regardless of vote history category. Swings to Republicans among everyone. Just bad for Bredesen and good for Blackburn all around - with the caveat that to be competitive at all, a good number of those Republicans would have to be voting for Bredesen, so maybe if the internal makeup of the Republicans who are voting is somehow skewed towards Bredesen, it might be a little bit less horribly bad for him than it seems. But it really does seem very bad for Bredesen.
TX --- Super Voter --- D+3.8
TX --- Frequent Voter --- D+4.5
TX --- Infrequent Voter --- D+7.8
TX --- Never Voted --- D+11.3
TX exhibits the overall national trend of a swing to Dems, and it being more concentrated among the less likely voter groups. This does mean that (relative to 2014, at least) Republicans are likely cannibalizing themselves somewhat more in the early vote than Dems.
However, the problem for Beto is that in order to win, in comparison to 2014 he doesn't just need a swing, but a really large swing, and this doesn't look big enough for that. Still, it looks big enough for a large improvement
as compared to 2014, which was a horrible year for TX Dems.
UT --- Super Voter --- R+1.3
UT --- Frequent Voter --- D+13
UT --- Infrequent Voter --- D+27.1
UT --- Never Voted --- D+36.2
Utah looks AMAZINGLY good for Dems. There are huge improvements among Infrequent Voters and never voted, and a very large improvement among Frequent Voters. For example, in 2014, modeled Repuiblicans had a 53.1%-27.8% lead among Infrequent Voters in Utah, whereas now modeled Dems have a 40.9% to 39.1% lead among Infrequent Voters in Utah.
And Republicans are cannibalizing their Super Voters, so Dems may still do well (at least for Utah, granted that it is Utah) on election day. This seems VERY good for McAdams' chances in UT-04.
VA --- Super Voter --- D+10.5
VA --- Frequent Voter --- D+15.3
VA --- Infrequent Voter --- D+15
VA --- Never Voted --- D+4.9
In VA it is just good for Dems. It is a bit less good with Never Voted, but again that is a small group.
WA --- Super Voter --- D+4.2
WA --- Frequent Voter --- D+10.7
WA --- Infrequent Voter --- D+7.8
WA --- Never Voted --- D+3.3
WA seems to be a weird middle case - Dems are having their largest swing with Frequent voters, but less large swings with both Super Voters and Infrequent Voters.
WI --- Super Voter --- D+1.1
WI --- Frequent Voter --- D+4
WI --- Infrequent Voter --- D+18
WI --- Never Voted --- R+4.8
WI looks good for Dems and suggests a bit of relative Republican cannibalization in the early vote. Dems are doing comparatively very well with turnout out their infrequent voters in WI.
Republicans do have gains among Never Voted, but this is very small in WI - only 1.8% of the total.
