Early & Absentee Voting Megathread - Build the Freiwal

[Xing]

NV is really the only state where I'm paying attention to early voting. In TX, it's pretty clear from the polls that Beto is going to need a miracle to actually beat Cruz, and early voting reports don't change that, in my mind.

[Ebsy]

Do everyone a favor and ignore Targetsmart. We know from actual voting history of early voters thus far that there are actually a lot of infrequent voters.

The Targetsmart data is actual voting history data. It is individual-level voter file data.

What are their methodological definitions of the different types of voters? Are frequent voters people who just vote in Presidential years? The breakdown you posted has 15% in the infrequent and new voters column. Hardly a small share, especially for a midterm.

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

What are their methodological definitions of the different types of voters?

They are buckets that voters are categorized into based on their vote history. I don't know the exact criteria for the buckets, but it is a safe bet that the definitions are reasonable. This is a widely used, well-known voter data firm.

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One way you can see (more or less) what the categorizations are is by looking at the % of registered voters that fall into each category. In TX, it is 16.51% Super Voter, 32.74% Frequent Voter You can then compare that to historical turnout as a share of registered voters. There was 38% turnout in 2010, 34% in 2014, and 59% in 2016.

So more or less normal midterm turnout seems like it would be most Super-Voters + 1/2 or 2/3 or so Frequent voters + smaller #s of infrequents and new voters. Clearly we are going to be well over that, but the problem is there are lots of Rs turning around in the lower-rung vote history categories, regardless of whether you want to say that lower rung is "frequent" or "infrequent."

[Pandaguineapig]

I just look forward to Twitter on election night when o'Rourke takes an early lead after the initial early vote dump. Only to have that optimism whither away as the rurals and ed vote come in.

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

Backing up my analysis a bit further:

https://twitter.com/trowaman/status/1055879196575186944

https://twitter.com/trowaman/status/1055879448229175296

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

I just look forward to Twitter on election night when o'Rourke takes an early lead after the initial early vote dump. Only to have that optimism whither away as the rurals and ed vote come in.

Judging from the early vote data so far, it is more likely to be the opposite - R's doing well in early vote and Beto better on election day. That could change somewhat - in particular Dems do tend to vote more on the weekend, and maybe towards the end of the EV period, but so far Rs are doing what they need to do in the TX early vote.

[Wisconsin SC Race 2019]

Backing up my analysis a bit further:

https://twitter.com/trowaman/status/1055879196575186944

https://twitter.com/trowaman/status/1055879448229175296

Yep, a lot of it is shenanigans with the voting hours in Harris County...which close at 4:30 PM compared to 7PM in the rest of the state. Dems have no chance here. 

[SCNCmod]

I just look forward to Twitter on election night when o'Rourke takes an early lead after the initial early vote dump. Only to have that optimism whither away as the rurals and ed vote come in.

Judging from the early vote data so far, it is more likely to be the opposite - R's doing well in early vote and Beto better on election day. That could change somewhat - in particular Dems do tend to vote more on the weekend, and maybe towards the end of the EV period, but so far Rs are doing what they need to do in the TX early vote.

If Beto were to somehow pull out a miracle he would need Republican crossover votes.  I assume there is no way to know what % of Republican EVs are crossover voters.  So In a race like Texas- I'm not sure how helpful EV numbers are... since Beto was always going to have to hope for crossover votes (like younger suburban women... which some say he has made inroads with).

[Devout Centrist]

Note that early voting is up the most in Tarrant, Williamson, Hays, Brazos, Denton, and Collin counties.

All of these counties voted for Trump...but they have something else in common...what could it be??

[Gass3268]

Republican advantaged dropped again In Arizona:

https://twitter.com/Garrett_Archer/status/1055896590110547968

[KingSweden]

Republican advantaged dropped again In Arizona:

https://twitter.com/Garrett_Archer/status/1055896590110547968

Does this include all counties or are there still some delayed?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can the mods please ban any further discussion about NV in this thread thanks

Nevada is the only state that's actually worth discussing in this thread.

[Gass3268]

Republican advantaged dropped again In Arizona:

https://twitter.com/Garrett_Archer/status/1055896590110547968

Does this include all counties or are there still some delayed?

Pretty sure this is everything.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Can the mods please ban any further discussion about NV in this thread thanks

Nevada is the only state that's actually worth discussing in this thread.

Arizona and Florida are worth discussing too. The vast majority of votes in Arizona will be cast via mail-in ballot.

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

If Beto were to somehow pull out a miracle he would need Republican crossover votes.  I assume there is no way to know what % of Republican EVs are crossover voters.  So In a race like Texas- I'm not sure how helpful EV numbers are... since Beto was always going to have to hope for crossover votes (like younger suburban women... which some say he has made inroads with).

You can get some approximate idea of how many crossover votes he is likely to get from polling. He is doing pretty well with independents, but while he will definitely get some crossover votes, I wouldn't count on too huge a #. Remember how many Rs in Alabama voted even for Roy Moore...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can the mods please ban any further discussion about NV in this thread thanks

Nevada is the only state that's actually worth discussing in this thread.

Arizona and Florida are worth discussing too. The vast majority of votes in Arizona will be cast via mail-in ballot.

Arizona? Maybe. Florida? Not after 2016.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Am I the only one who finds it odd that many people say they've learned from their mistakes in trusting political analysts...without considering that maybe the analysts have learned something from their own mistakes?

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Can the mods please ban any further discussion about NV in this thread thanks

Nevada is the only state that's actually worth discussing in this thread.

Arizona and Florida are worth discussing too. The vast majority of votes in Arizona will be cast via mail-in ballot.

Arizona? Maybe. Florida? Not after 2016.

Idk much about FL but I know mail-in ballots were around 85% of the votes in the AZ-08 special election.

Arizona is probably even better to discuss than Nevada. Already 854K votes and total votes in 2014 was around 1.45 million.

[KingSweden]

Can the mods please ban any further discussion about NV in this thread thanks

Nevada is the only state that's actually worth discussing in this thread.

Arizona and Florida are worth discussing too. The vast majority of votes in Arizona will be cast via mail-in ballot.

Arizona? Maybe. Florida? Not after 2016.

Idk much about FL but I know mail-in ballots were around 85% of the votes in the AZ-08 special election.

Arizona is probably even better to discuss than Nevada.

That kind of mail ballot return may be a curiosity of that district, which is full of old white retirees. I think the AV number will probably be high statewide but I dunno if we can extrapolate return rates in AZ-8 statewide

[Virginiá]

Am I the only one who finds it odd that many people say they've learned from their mistakes in trusting political analysts...without considering that maybe the analysts have learned something from their own mistakes?

[SCNCmod]

Am I the only one who finds it odd that many people say they've learned from their mistakes in trusting political analysts...without considering that maybe the analysts have learned something from their own mistakes?

One potential issue with polling this year... that I wonder about- 2016 was somewhat of a pendulum swing that some pollsters missed.  If the pendulum swings back to some extent & pollsters have readjusted models to 2016.... they may be caught behind again (overestimating the trump supporter in their models)

[Antonio the Sixth]

Am I the only one who finds it odd that many people say they've learned from their mistakes in trusting political analysts...without considering that maybe the analysts have learned something from their own mistakes?

They might, but I'm not going to just trust them on it without evidence. Trust must be earned.

[RI]

Votes cast so far as % of 2014 total vote
1. Tennessee, 53.1%
2. Arizona, 47.8%
3. Nevada, 45.1%
4. Montana, 42.3%
5. Texas, 38.7%
6. Georgia, 36.8%
7. North Carolina, 32.5%
8. New Mexico, 31.1%
9. Florida, 29.0%
10. Colorado, 21.0%

Votes cast so far as % of 2016 total vote
1. Montana, 31.2%
2. Tennessee, 29.1%
3. Arizona, 27.7%
4. Georgia, 22.8%
5. Nevada, 21.9%
6. Utah, 20.4%
7. New Mexico, 20.1%
8. Texas, 20.0%
9. North Carolina, 20.0%
10. Florida, 18.2%

Map of TargetSmart's partisanship numbers:

Map of % of 2014 (color ramp +2 shades from normal):

[GeorgiaModerate]

Ralston's 1pm PT update on his models:

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[Pandaguineapig]

Ralston's 1pm PT update on his models:

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This doesn't factor in election day voting which has historically been heavily Republican ( though some of that may be cannibalized in the cow counties)