2020 Absentee/Early Voting megathread 2

[BidenHarris2020]

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1321866936049897476?s=20

Hot damn!

[Non Swing Voter]

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1321866936049897476?s=20

Where are the doomers? These numbers should be just devastating for Trump considering that this is already 60% of the likely electorate. Trump would need to overperform his own 2016 numbers and Biden needs to underperform Hillary's numbers but quite a lot in the remaining 40% in order for to Trump to win the state.

NC has been one of the most surprising bright spots to me this cycle.  The suburban collapse for Republicans seems to be very real there.

[MadmanMotley]

Texas early voting exceeds total of all 2016 ballots
https://news.yahoo.com/texas-early-voting-exceeds-total-135018987.html

More people have voted early in Texas this year than there were total voters in 2016.

[Benjamin Frank]

By the end of today, at least 87,200,000 votes will have been cast.  For those a little slower on the math, that is an average of 200,000 voters per U.S House district (including Washington D.C.)

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I don't get why folks are acting like Biden being the underdog in FL is a reason to freak out.  It's not even the only chance for an election night knock out blow, much less a state Biden needs to win.  Honestly, Trump probably is favored there, but Florida is basically the only state where the numbers aren't looking great for Biden.

[LimoLiberal]

Florida counties release stats of Election Day voters on Election Day, no? So we should get a pretty good read on how big the surge of Republicans is on Tuesday.

[MT Treasurer]

MONTANA, as of 10/30:

County (2016 Presidential vote, 2016 Gubernatorial vote, 2018 Senate vote) - % of mail-in ballots returned

Cascade (Trump +22, Bullock +10, Tester +5) - 71.1% of mail-ins returned

Flathead (Trump +36, Gianforte +15, Rosendale +15) - 67.1% of mail-ins returned

Gallatin (Clinton +1, Bullock +15, Tester +21) - 70.1% of mail-ins returned

Lake (Trump +21, Bullock +2, Tester +3) - 76.5% of mail-ins returned

Lewis & Clark (Trump +7, Bullock +23, Tester +18) - 78.0% of mail-ins returned

Missoula (Clinton +16, Bullock +34, Tester +37) - 76.0% of mail-ins returned

Ravalli (Trump +38, Gianforte +14, Rosendale +19) - 75.2% of mail-ins returned

Silver Bow (Clinton +14, Bullock +44, Tester +45) - 77.2% of mail-ins returned

Yellowstone (Trump +27, Gianforte +1, Rosendale +3.5) - 77.1% of mail-ins returned

Statewide: 73.4% of mail-ins returned (480.817 / 655.491)

[GP270watch]

Florida counties release stats of Election Day voters on Election Day, no? So we should get a pretty good read on how big the surge of Republicans is on Tuesday.

 A lot of them have real time voter turnout software but of course Miami-Dade does not.

 I don't think Biden is the underdog and I don't think Trump is favored. They both have plus and minuses already this cycle. It's going to come down to turnout, how NPA breaks, and if there is any momentum away from or towards Trump locally.

[Asta]

I don't get why folks are acting like Biden being the underdog in FL is a reason to freak out.  It's not even the only chance for an election night knock out blow, much less a state Biden needs to win.  Honestly, Trump probably is favored there, but Florida is basically the only state where the numbers aren't looking great for Biden.

Because in case there is a huge polling miss in Midwest, then Democrats have to make up ground from somewhere like FL, NC and GA.

FL was the closest state margin-wise in 2016 of the three, and is where they can make up huge chunk of lost votes. Trump may declare mail ballots fraudulent baselessly and just throw the election into chaos. Winning FL is the ultimate knockout blow to him. But at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if NC and GA vote to the left of FL.

[Gren]

Am I right in saying that this is currently only a Miami-Dade problem and the other south democratic counties like Broward & Palm Beach are doing okay?

Basically yes, but I wouldn't even go that far. It's more like Biden has a Hialeah/West Miami problem. I haven't seen any evidence to indicate weakness for Biden with the AA vote in North Miami or with white liberals along the bay and beaches.

If I recall correctly from the maps and stats that were posted a few days ago, white Democrats were by far the group with the highest turnout of all Miami-Dade, even more than white Republicans. But that may always be the case,  I don't know.

[Inmate Trump]

I don't get why folks are acting like Biden being the underdog in FL is a reason to freak out.  It's not even the only chance for an election night knock out blow, much less a state Biden needs to win.  Honestly, Trump probably is favored there, but Florida is basically the only state where the numbers aren't looking great for Biden.

I think a big reason is because Florida settles it on election night if Biden wins there.

If Biden wins Florida, the election is over.
If Trump wins Florida, we’ll likely not know the overall winner for a day or two or maybe even extending into a couple of weeks. Thus giving Trump a chance to contest the results and have his Supreme Court settle things.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Here's an update to the Derek Ryan reports on Texas early voting, which include primary voting history and some basic demographic data.

https://mcusercontent.com/d3064a2fadaf6089dc58a8393/files/c2de2855-be79-4d06-95de-f085578dc256/Statewide_Report_Day_16.pdf

Honestly, there are some good things and some bad things for each side here, depending on how you want to interpret it.

Texas early vote by primary voting history:

First, here is turnout so far by primary voting history, as compared to 2016/2018:



At the start of the early voting period, there was a big surge of Dem voters, and for a time the Dem primary voter share of the electorate was higher than in 2018. That trend has since receded as the electorate has broadened out, and GOP primary voters and voters without primary history have gone up.

On Day 9 of early voting, the Dem primary voter share of early voters was 26.1%. By Day 14, it dropped to 24.0%. Now it is down to 22.9% (Day 16). The R primary voter share also has decreased since Day 9, when it was 31.3%. On Day 14 it fell to 29.8%, and now is down to 29.1%. So it has fallen, but not by as much as the Dem primary vote share.

The major group that has increased in the later part of early voting has been voters with no vote history whatsoever; brand new voters (those are definitely not cannibalizing anything). On Day 9, new voters were 12.7% of early voters. By Day 14 that was up to 14.9%. And now it is up to 16%. Voters with GE vote history but no primary vote history also have increased over the early vote period, but not as much, from 26.3% on Day 9 to 28.1% on Day 14, to 28.9% by the end of Day 16 (yesterday).

To some extent, it is to be expected/inevitable that the higher turnout goes, the more the Dem primary voter share will go down, because you simply run out of Dem primary voters from previous elections. Part of what it means for a state like TX to swing/trend Dem is that you are getting new Dem voters, not ones that previously voted in Dem primaries or previously voted for Dem candidates.

The part that is potentially troubling from a Dem perspective is that the R primary voter share of the electorate is basically the same as in 2016; no decline at this point. As a caveat though, R primary vote history is not the same thing as being a Republican. I personally know partisan Dems who basically always have voted in R primaries in Texas in the past, because they have effectively decided the General Election. Even the Democratic Senate nominee MJ Hegar has R primary voting history as recently as 2012 (she voted for Romney)!

By this point near the end of the early voting period, on both sides voters with previous primary voting history seem pretty close to tapped out/"cannibalized." If there is high turnout on the last day of early voting and on election day, it is not going to be primarily composed of people who have voted in primaries, it will be made up of new voters and people who may have voted in a General election or 2 in the past but never in primaries.

90.3% of people who voted in 4 of 4 D primaries have already voted and 87.9% of those with 4 of 4 R primaries have. When you take into account people moving to a different address/county/state and who have died, that means that pretty much every last partisan super-voter on each side has already voted. Most, though a bit less, of those who voted in 1 of the last 4 primaries have also voted (71.2% of Ds, 68.4% of Rs), and people who voted in 2 or 3 primaries are in between the 1 of 4s and the 4 of 4s. So there is a little bit more that can be potentially squeezed out of those groups, but probably not that much more.

Another thing this makes clear is there is not some huge untapped group of election day voters with Republican primary vote history. It is possible that there may be a significant group of R-leaning voters waiting to vote on election day, but if so, they are not the ones that vote in R primaries (and that includes people who voted in the 2016 Republican primary for Trump). This makes me skeptical of just how much Trump can plausibly be expected to win the election day vote by. Since polls consistently seem to show that Biden is leading among early voters even in polls that have Trump ahead overall, the fact that at least the hard core partisan R vote seems to be mostly tapped out seems like a good sign for Biden's chances.


Texas early vote by age:



At the start of early voting, young voter turnout (18-29) was comparatively low. Since then, it has caught up, and is now exceeding the 2018 share of young voters, and has matched 2016 (with early voting still not done). Interestingly, despite that, the age 70+ vote share is still 17.6%, which is higher than 2016 and also even higher than 2018 (despite 2018 being a midterm).

The fact that the Senior vote share is higher is no doubt partly a result of the general aging population. It might also be an indicator of some vote cannibalization, with lots of Seniors voting early. So the Senior vote share may be pretty low on election day. If so, that is another reason to be skeptical that Trump will carry the election day vote - at least in Texas - by some massive unheard of margin. Probably a lot of this is Seniors voting early by mail to reduce their risk of contracting the virus in the pandemic...

Over the course of the early vote period, the 18-29 share has gone steadily up, while the Age 70+ share steadily declined. At the end of Day 9 it was 11.2% 18-29, up to 12.7% on Day 14, and 13.4% on Day 16. The age 30-49 share has also been going up, while the Age 50-69 share and the age 70+ shares have been declining as more and more votes come in.


Texas early vote by gender:

Currently 52.1% are female, 43.5% male, 4.4% unknown gender. It is very clear that more women have been voting than men. There has been a slight decline in the female share, however, from day 9 when it was 52.4% female, 43.4% male, and 4.2% unknown. But that is a very small change compared to the other demographic & vote history changes we have seen.


Overall, the more people vote and the more time that early voting has gone on:

a) the younger the electorate gets
b) the more the Dem primary voter share goes down
c) the more the GOP primary voter share goes down (to a lesser degree)
d) the more the share of brand new voters with no history at all goes up
e) the more the share of voters with GE vote history but no primary vote history goes up (to a lesser degree)
f) the electorate becomes slightly more male (though not by much, and there still seem to be clearly more women voting than men)

In terms of demographics, I would expect this general trend to continue on election day, though it is possible the election day voters may vote for Trump to a higher degree than those demographics would predict.


For comparison, here are previous reports from earlier that were posted in this thread by me and ON_Progressive:

https://mcusercontent.com/d3064a2fadaf6089dc58a8393/files/9411ad67-cc0e-4028-b4c6-5472ef16256a/Statewide_Report_Day_14.pdf

https://mcusercontent.com/d3064a2fadaf6089dc58a8393/files/c269aebb-c027-490d-ae9b-487678a34e83/Statewide_Report_Day_9.03.pdf

[randomusername]

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1321866936049897476?s=20

Where are the doomers? These numbers should be just devastating for Trump considering that this is already 60% of the likely electorate. Trump would need to overperform his own 2016 numbers and Biden needs to underperform Hillary's numbers but quite a lot in the remaining 40% in order for to Trump to win the state.

I'm not typically a doomer, but do think there's the caveat of it having a 4% MOE.

[Tekken_Guy]

I don't get why folks are acting like Biden being the underdog in FL is a reason to freak out.  It's not even the only chance for an election night knock out blow, much less a state Biden needs to win.  Honestly, Trump probably is favored there, but Florida is basically the only state where the numbers aren't looking great for Biden.

2018 really should have set off alarm bells in the Florida Democratic party. I believe their best strategy going forward is to focus on the rest of the state. Non-MD Florida voted Trump by about 5 points in 2016. Scott and DeSantis only won it by 2. If Biden can narrow it down to like a point, he'll be in a good position to win.

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

MONTANA, as of 10/30:

County (2016 Presidential vote, 2016 Gubernatorial vote, 2018 Senate vote) - % of mail-in ballots returned

Cascade (Trump +22, Bullock +10, Tester +5) - 71.1% of mail-ins returned

Flathead (Trump +36, Gianforte +15, Rosendale +15) - 67.1% of mail-ins returned

Gallatin (Clinton +1, Bullock +15, Tester +21) - 70.1% of mail-ins returned

Lake (Trump +21, Bullock +2, Tester +3) - 76.5% of mail-ins returned

Lewis & Clark (Trump +7, Bullock +23, Tester +18) - 78.0% of mail-ins returned

Missoula (Clinton +16, Bullock +34, Tester +37) - 76.0% of mail-ins returned

Ravalli (Trump +38, Gianforte +14, Rosendale +19) - 75.2%  of mail-ins returned

Silver Bow (Clinton +14, Bullock +44, Tester +45) - 77.2%  of mail-ins returned

Yellowstone (Trump +27, Gianforte +1, Rosendale +3.5) - 77.1% of mail-ins returned

Statewide: 73.4% of mail-ins returned (480.817 / 655.491)

For my own edification, updated this with county request/return numbers. Shared below:

Cascade (Trump +22, Bullock +10, Tester +5) - 71.1% (31,093 of 43,575) of mail-ins returned

Flathead (Trump +36, Gianforte +15, Rosendale +15) - 67.1% (43,919 of 67,194) of mail-ins returned

Gallatin (Clinton +1, Bullock +15, Tester +21) - 70.1% (54,761 of 77,295) of mail-ins returned

Lake (Trump +21, Bullock +2, Tester +3) - 76.5% (13,693 of 18,168) of mail-ins returned

Lewis & Clark (Trump +7, Bullock +23, Tester +18) - 78.0% (35,319 of 45,346) of mail-ins returned

Missoula (Clinton +16, Bullock +34, Tester +37) - 76.0% (58,451 of 78,473) of mail-ins returned

Ravalli (Trump +38, Gianforte +14, Rosendale +19) - 75.2% (22,977 of 30,620) of mail-ins returned

Silver Bow (Clinton +14, Bullock +44, Tester +45) - 77.2% (15,333 of 20,499) of mail-ins returned

Yellowstone (Trump +27, Gianforte +1, Rosendale +3.5) - 77.1% (70,187 of 93,696) of mail-ins returned

Statewide: 73.4% of mail-ins returned (480.817 / 655.491)

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I don't get why folks are acting like Biden being the underdog in FL is a reason to freak out.  It's not even the only chance for an election night knock out blow, much less a state Biden needs to win.  Honestly, Trump probably is favored there, but Florida is basically the only state where the numbers aren't looking great for Biden.

Because in case there is a huge polling miss in Midwest, then Democrats have to make up ground from somewhere like FL, NC and GA.

FL was the closest state margin-wise in 2016 of the three, and is where they can make up huge chunk of lost votes. Trump may declare mail ballots fraudulent baselessly and just throw the election into chaos. Winning FL is the ultimate knockout blow to him. But at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if NC and GA vote to the left of FL.

Yeah, but I think Biden probably flips North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and possibly even Texas before Florida.  One could even argue he's more likely to win Iowa than Florida, the way things are going.

I don't get why folks are acting like Biden being the underdog in FL is a reason to freak out.  It's not even the only chance for an election night knock out blow, much less a state Biden needs to win.  Honestly, Trump probably is favored there, but Florida is basically the only state where the numbers aren't looking great for Biden.

2018 really should have set off alarm bells in the Florida Democratic party. I believe their best strategy going forward is to focus on the rest of the state. Non-MD Florida voted Trump by about 5 points in 2016. Scott and DeSantis only won it by 2. If Biden can narrow it down to like a point, he'll be in a good position to win.

Tbh I've kinda feel about Florida the way IndyRep does about Iowa ever since 2018  

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

https://twitter.com/kionnemcghee/status/1322214250413215744
https://twitter.com/kionnemcghee/status/1322222134559690753

[Bootes Void]

https://twitter.com/kionnemcghee/status/1322214250413215744
https://twitter.com/kionnemcghee/status/1322222134559690753

This looks bad. Why aren't they counting the votes?

[mijan]

885097 Iowans have voted so far.
56.52% of 2016
985977 Iowans have requested for early ballots.
62.96% of 2016

Dems 417886
Indy 173930
Rep 289511

Dems + 128375

60.6% Registered active Dems have already voted early.
41.2% Registered active Reps have already voted early.

In 2016
87% Registered active Reps had voted
80% Registered active Dems had voted.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Am I right in saying that this is currently only a Miami-Dade problem and the other south democratic counties like Broward & Palm Beach are doing okay?

Basically yes, but I wouldn't even go that far. It's more like Biden has a Hialeah/West Miami problem. I haven't seen any evidence to indicate weakness for Biden with the AA vote in North Miami or with white liberals along the bay and beaches.

If I recall correctly from the maps and stats that were posted a few days ago, white Democrats were by far the group with the highest turnout of all Miami-Dade, even more than white Republicans. But that may always be the case,  I don't know.

I don't know, but White Democrats in Miami-Dade definitely skew high-income and Jewish which would generally indicate high turnout.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

This looks bad. Why aren't they counting the votes?

Florida is gonna Florida.

[GP270watch]

https://twitter.com/kionnemcghee/status/1322214250413215744
https://twitter.com/kionnemcghee/status/1322222134559690753

This looks bad. Why aren't they counting the votes?

 I think you know the answer.

[BlueSwan]

https://twitter.com/kionnemcghee/status/1322214250413215744
https://twitter.com/kionnemcghee/status/1322222134559690753

Awful.

[Adam Griffin]

Write off Florida. Write off Ohio. Even a sizable segment of Biden's campaign team wanted to do such, but special interests and deluded pundits stuck in the 00s won the day ultimately.

Do what I've been doing for the past 4 years and you'll sleep better at night.

[BudgieForce]

The video looks worse than it is. There is plenty of regular mail mixed in their. Those aren't boxes and boxes of just unsorted ballots.