What does the record-shattering early vote turnout mean in swing states?

[EJ24]

?

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

No one knows.

[TheLaRocca]

nothing. just wait and see.

[Buzz]

Too early to make any assumptions.

[pbrower2a]

The Trump campaign first disparaged early voting and then found (internal polls, I presume) that the level of participation was so high that the Trump campaign took a 180-degree turnabout and sought to get Trump voters out to vote early, too. People waiting to the last moment might despair about voting for the Great and Infallible Leader.

Election-day voting will likely be lighter than usual, and probably not to the benefit of Trump. Election-day balloting will be more favorable to Trump.. maybe even 60-40 nationwide. Early and absentee voting will be up --- way up, and enough to overpower such an edge.

Where such is shown, votes by people registered as Democrats are far greater than those by people registered as Republicans. As important: there will be a significant number of usual Republicans voting against Trump, and little on the other side.

[bagelman]

You can say it was expected because of the pandemic, but we won't know for sure until after the votes are counted.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

We don't know until all the votes are cast but Trump isn't winning 291 freiwall

[Gass3268]

Nothing, Vote Harder.

[indietraveler]

Cautiously optimistic.

Ask me again a day or two before the election. If some places are hitting close to 100% of their 2016 turnout I'll feel pretty good.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I think it means Trumps in trouble, because at this point any shift in the race nationally won’t have as much as a pronounced impact, meaning that in order to win, he has to be able to narrow the national environment to something like Trump + 1 instead of Trump +3. Current polls indicate the national environment is roughly Biden + 11, even if that’s 5 points off Biden is still ahead by 6%, which is probably more than enough to win the EC

[Nyvin]

We don't really have anything to compare it to.    The only tangible thing that I can make of it is that Democratic Campaigns can target their remaining voters more intensely in the remaining time to a larger degree than Republican campaigns can.

[Non Swing Voter]

Something between nothing and GOP is in huge trouble.  If you believe the polls then Biden is locking in a massive amount of votes while he's leading significantly.  So he's much more insulated from a James Comey type surprise.  Also, in a lot of Southern states Democrats can win if they can match GOP turnout.  This helps them do so.  So I think it's not decisive but definitely beneficial.  The only people who argue strenuously that it makes no difference are political pundits who want to feel important.  If it wasn't important, each side wouldn't invest massively in turning people out early.

[Ferguson97]

These three options are not mutually exclusive

[Xing]

We can’t be sure yet.

[TML]

Historically speaking, early voting hasn't been a reliable indicator of an election's expected outcome. An example of this is North Carolina: over the past decade and a half, a consistent pattern has emerged with voting patterns among early/absentee voters vs. Election Day voters: Democrats generally do well in the non-ED vote count, only to have Republicans dominate the ED vote count, often enough for Republicans to claim victory. For example, the 2008, 2012, and 2016 elections all had the Republican presidential candidate win the Election Day vote by more than 200K votes, which was enough to push them over the edge in 2012 and 2016 but not 2008 (although it did wipe out 95% of the Democratic candidate's lead among early/absentee voters that year).

Additionally, in states where early/absentee voting comprise a substantial portion of the electorate, opinion polls in the final weeks before Election Day will ask if the respondent has already voted or not. For example, there was a poll in early November 2016 in North Carolina which indicated that Clinton led among voters who already voted, but Trump had a bigger lead among voters who had yet to cast their ballots. This should be a clear indication that early voting leads are anything but indicative of the final result.

[Hammy]

It means the pandemic isn't having a negative turnout impact, that's about all. Too early to say until election day who benefits.

Could be a lot of D's who might not have voted otherwise, people across the board taking the pandemic seriously, or everybody so worked into a frenzy (regardless of who they're voting for) that they simply don't feel they can contain themselves and wait.