2020 Absentee/Early Voting thread

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

How is turnout in the Rio Grande Valley looking? If I were the Biden campaign, I might invest in trying to juice up mail-in turnout in counties like El Paso, Hidalgo, Cameron as well. It seems like they punch way below their weight given their populations.

Turnout has been very good in El Paso and Cameron, but only slightly outpacing 2016/18 in Hidalgo and Webb. Good on the whole, though. El Paso cast over 15% of 2016/2018 votes yesterday, for example.

[Gass3268]

How is turnout in the Rio Grande Valley looking? If I were the Biden campaign, I might invest in trying to juice up mail-in turnout in counties like El Paso, Hidalgo, Cameron as well. It seems like they punch way below their weight given their populations.

Turnout has been very good in El Paso and Cameron, but only slightly outpacing 2016/18 in Hidalgo and Webb. Good on the whole, though. El Paso cast over 15% of 2016/2018 votes yesterday, for example.

I remember when turnout in El Paso County used to be some of the worst in the state. Amazing what Beto has been able to do there.

[forsythvoter]

I wonder if Montgomery County could see some pretty large swings to Biden this year. My county (Forsyth) in GA seems pretty similar (outer suburban, large planned communities similar to the Woodlands) and has a large contingent of Trump'16 voters defecting to Biden this year.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY (Houston suburbs)
2012:   15,021       5.7%
2016:   20,432       6.6%
2018:   20,158       6.0%
2020:   20,874       5.7%

LOL, one of the counties showing no bump is one of the Republican bastions of the state. They'd better hope the voters show up on Election Day now that the rest of Texas is becoming a functioning democracy for the first time.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can we have a rundown on how voting is going in WI, MI, PA and NC? I haven't heard much about those states in over a week, and the ElectProject numbers recently seem to have stalled. Is it due to lags in reporting or have those states just blown their load already?

My Wisconsin Spreadsheet

So Dane's still leading the pack by a wide margin, Milwaukee is also above average in its return rate, and other leading counties are also largely Dem-friendly (although WOW is also in there). That makes sense.

I feel like these totals have barely gone up in the past few days, though. Is that normal? Or am I mistaken?

It's slowing down a little bit:

9/22-9/29: 270,511 new votes
9/29-10/6: 236,794 new votes
10/6-10/13: 171,815 new votes

With Monday being a Federal holiday, I think that explains a significant portion of the decline in week 3. If you count the ballots added today (meaning counted on Tuesday) it goes up to 210,858 new votes.

Wisconsin has one more week of only mail absentee voting, starting next Tuesday in person absentee voting starts. I would expect the pace to pick back up again. Today is also the last day to request a mail absentee ballot and register to vote online. Folks can still register to vote in person during the early vote window and on election day.

Fingers crossed Dane County can hit 50% before early voting starts. I think they'll get close, but they would need to pick up the pace a bit to hit the mark.

Very helpful, thanks!

[Rep Jessica]

Maricopa
New update:
All: 169739  Dem: 78333  Rep: 53436 Other: 37970
Dem: 46.1  Rep: 31.5 Other: 22.4

[Non Swing Voter]

Maricopa
New update:
All: 169739  Dem: 78333  Rep: 53436 Other: 37970
Dem: 46.1  Rep: 31.5 Other: 22.4

Is that good for Dems or expected?

[Gass3268]

Maricopa
New update:
All: 169739  Dem: 78333  Rep: 53436 Other: 37970
Dem: 46.1  Rep: 31.5 Other: 22.4

Is that good for Dems or expected?

Probably, but everything is so scrambled this year you really can't go off past comparisons that much.

[Non Swing Voter]

Maricopa
New update:
All: 169739  Dem: 78333  Rep: 53436 Other: 37970
Dem: 46.1  Rep: 31.5 Other: 22.4

Is that good for Dems or expected?

Probably, but everything is so scrambled this year you really can't go off past comparisons that much.

what kind of margin does Biden need out of Maricopa to win statewide?

[DINGO Joe]

Maricopa
New update:
All: 169739  Dem: 78333  Rep: 53436 Other: 37970
Dem: 46.1  Rep: 31.5 Other: 22.4

Is that good for Dems or expected?

Probably, but everything is so scrambled this year you really can't go off past comparisons that much.

what kind of margin does Biden need out of Maricopa to win statewide?

Well, Trump won Maricopa by 45,000 votes last time and he won the state by 90,000, so.....

[Non Swing Voter]

Maricopa
New update:
All: 169739  Dem: 78333  Rep: 53436 Other: 37970
Dem: 46.1  Rep: 31.5 Other: 22.4

Is that good for Dems or expected?

Probably, but everything is so scrambled this year you really can't go off past comparisons that much.

what kind of margin does Biden need out of Maricopa to win statewide?

Well, Trump won Maricopa by 45,000 votes last time and he won the state by 90,000, so.....

Alright so he's going to want to be up like 100k there I guess.

[Non Swing Voter]

Over 16 million votes in! 

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html

I forget what it was this morning but I want to say close to 13 million.  So about 3 million votes today?

[BaldEagle1991]

Harris County turnout numbers are making me proud to be a Houstonian today.

I can tell you that Houston has a huge anti-incumbent bias, small sizable swings against incumbents in a lot of elections.

[xavier110]

Maricopa
New update:
All: 169739  Dem: 78333  Rep: 53436 Other: 37970
Dem: 46.1  Rep: 31.5 Other: 22.4

Is that good for Dems or expected?

Yes. The largest lead Ds ever had in AZ early vote return in 2016 was about 7k. If AZ Ds maintain a lead, that will be a good sign.


https://mobile.twitter.com/sfalmy/status/1311763867903553536

[NOVA Green]

Harris County turnout numbers are making me proud to be a Houstonian today.

I can tell you that Houston has a huge anti-incumbent bias, small sizable swings against incumbents in a lot of elections.

As a former Harris County resident, I second the statement.

Extremely high turnout in Harris County, will also likely equate with high turnout of working-class Latino voters, who next to African-American voters, are the most solidly Democratic voting block in Tejas, and are less likely to turn out in high numbers in mid-term elections than PRES General Elections.

I'll be greedy and take both high turnout as well as high net raw votes AND % vote margins from Harris Count--- please if you don't mind.

[Non Swing Voter]

Maricopa
New update:
All: 169739  Dem: 78333  Rep: 53436 Other: 37970
Dem: 46.1  Rep: 31.5 Other: 22.4

Is that good for Dems or expected?

Yes. The largest lead Ds ever had in AZ early vote return in 2016 was about 7k. If AZ Ds maintain a lead, that will be a good sign.


https://mobile.twitter.com/sfalmy/status/1311763867903553536

If that happens in AZ and if early voting numbers are good in WI, MI (as people seem to think), then Biden's easiest path to 270 is probably -> MI + WI + AZ + NE-2 + Hillary states.

I feel really in the dark about PA right now but that would probably be the next most important state to add on.

[kireev]

Maricopa
New update:
All: 169739  Dem: 78333  Rep: 53436 Other: 37970
Dem: 46.1  Rep: 31.5 Other: 22.4

Is that good for Dems or expected?

Yes. The largest lead Ds ever had in AZ early vote return in 2016 was about 7k. If AZ Ds maintain a lead, that will be a good sign.


https://mobile.twitter.com/sfalmy/status/1311763867903553536

Very nice!
Do we have similar data for 2018?

[NOVA Green]

Maricopa
New update:
All: 169739  Dem: 78333  Rep: 53436 Other: 37970
Dem: 46.1  Rep: 31.5 Other: 22.4

Is that good for Dems or expected?

It all depends upon where the votes are coming from.

I recall doing quite a bit of work tracking the CD-08 Special Election and looking at the incoming VbMs totals by place and party REG on a daily basis.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=287204.msg6163232#msg6163232

There might be other Atlas threads that discuss VbM TO by day in Arizona either at a statewide or District Level, which someone could point towards?

Haven't really taken a peak, but AZ might actually have some archived data of vote by day by party REG to compare against (just like Oregon), since AZ has been essentially a heavily VbM State for years as well?

I would imagine that if Maricopa County is breaking hard DEM (Which is in alignment with what both recent polling data suggests, that non-aligned voters will actually tend to vote DEM>REP by respectable % margins).

Also in Maricopa County in 2020, I would not be surprised a significant higher rate of PUB defection to Biden than Biden voters to Trump.

Just did a recon at the Maricopa County Elections dpt and couldn't easily locate any ballot return files or documentation, but wasn't searching that hard...

[Hnv1]

Minnesota stopped updating votes, why?

VT with 35% early voting turnout, do they like early voting there or is something else happening?

PA, almost no reports from Philly or Scranton, can’t see why

[Dr. Arch]

Minnesota stopped updating votes, why?

VT with 35% early voting turnout, do they like early voting there or is something else happening?

PA, almost no reports from Philly or Scranton, can’t see why

I'm not sure about the latter two, but Minnesota updates weekly.

[wbrocks67]

Minnesota stopped updating votes, why?

VT with 35% early voting turnout, do they like early voting there or is something else happening?

PA, almost no reports from Philly or Scranton, can’t see why

?? There's been updates in Philly - they're up to 33-34% returned already.

[NOVA Green]

I wonder if Montgomery County could see some pretty large swings to Biden this year. My county (Forsyth) in GA seems pretty similar (outer suburban, large planned communities similar to the Woodlands) and has a large contingent of Trump'16 voters defecting to Biden this year.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY (Houston suburbs)
2012:   15,021       5.7%
2016:   20,432       6.6%
2018:   20,158       6.0%
2020:   20,874       5.7%

LOL, one of the counties showing no bump is one of the Republican bastions of the state. They'd better hope the voters show up on Election Day now that the rest of Texas is becoming a functioning democracy for the first time.

Hi Forsythvoter--- and belated welcome to the Forum!

Not totally in a position to do a complete compare / contrast analysis between both Counties as part of a Senior Project or Grad School Paper.

Still, having lived in NW Harris County for 4-5 Years, places like Magnolia, TX was just right down the road, drop over to Spring (No Prob), The Woodlands fun place to always visit with co-workers and friends that lived all around the area way back roughly from '12> '15, this naturally attracted my attention, and might at least be able to speak a bit on your original question.

Naturally, in order to more properly examine an extremely fast-growing place such as Montgomery County (9th fastest growing in TX by POP and/or % Increase), we must first examine where the voters reside.

The Woodlands gets a lot of sex appeal, as perhaps it is the most well known Community within Montgomery County, because of it's location along I-45, a major Music Venue, where me and my wife saw Black Sabbath reunited back in the early / Mid 2010s, awesome place where "The Villages" was essentially part of a decentralized structure of Municipal Government, and honestly had we been planning in staying in Texas for longer, while well have forked over the $$$ to buy a condo or rent an apartment and deal with the long commutes down the SH's.

Still only one joint in a sprawling county with about 600k residents... almost large enough to get it's own CD if you follow Oregon style districting laws...

Let's just briefly attempt to break down the vote by vote share by place looking at the 2016 GE PRES results and raw votes.



Now let's look at it from a % by Place Scenario:



These numbers are potentially devastating for DEMs in one the fastest growing counties in Texas...

PUB's grabbing a +100k Raw Vote Margin, not gonna be good, especially if low turnout elsewhere within Metro H-Town / Space City...

Still, maybe we have some good numbers from 2018 to help us continue our rush caused by the '18 GE-TX-SEN numbers?

Here are the Raw Vote Numbers by Place in Montgomery County Texas for US SEN in 2018:



Naturally, we also need to look at this in terms of % of the Vote for the 2018 SEN Election:



So... maybe potentially some good news for DEMs to cut down PUB margins in Montgomery County significantly, but Cruz holding virtually steady in The Woodlands in '18, and only dropping a few points in the Montgomery County areas around Spring, do not indicate a massive DEM swing here in 2020, unless Biden ends up winning Texas.

Sure the numbers from Magnolia zip codes might suggest some hope for DEMs in 2020 PRES & SEN swings, and help shave a few % off the margins.

Montgomery Area, not sure how many of y'all ever been out there, but +15k Trump>HRC and +15k Cruz>Beto with roughly 68% GE PRES Margins in '16 and +67% PUB Margins in '18, doesn't really look like we will see massive swings, despite COVID and Biden increase support levels among White Catholics and White Evangelicals...

ExtremeRepublican might have some interesting perspectives with compare/contrast, since Montgomery County might perhaps be somewhat similar to Williamson County, TN, which perhaps might even be more portable when it comes to places like Forsyth County, Georgia.

[wbrocks67]

Those TX #s, especially out of Harris, seem very good for Biden.

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia Votes hasn't updated yet, but there were 173,263 ballots cast in GA on Wednesday (in-person + mail). This is a greater number than on Tuesday (141,646) & on Monday (162,229), despite there being relatively short wait times yesterday.

One part of the problem on Monday was that the bandwidth for the computers checking in voters wasn't sufficiently high enough across the state to accommodate the surge, but the software provider has since upped it.

A total of 916,156 votes have been cast in GA thus far. This makes it #6 currently in states with the most votes cast. While TX will likely surpass GA tomorrow, I expect GA will also surpass at least one of the other current top-5 states by Friday.

CA 1685521
FL 1916920
MI 1194583
VA 1058945
NJ 1047779
GA 916156
TX 907054

VT 35.0% (of 2016)
VA 26.6%
NJ 26.5%
WI 25.4%
SD 24.9%
MI 24.5%
GA 22.0%
WY 21.5%
MN 21.4%
ND 20.9%

[Crucial Waukesha]

Minnesota stopped updating votes, why?

VT with 35% early voting turnout, do they like early voting there or is something else happening?

PA, almost no reports from Philly or Scranton, can’t see why

VT mailed out ballots to all eligible voters this year due to COVID so expect very high turnout

[wbrocks67]

I think MN only updates once a week IIRC