10/27 Update on early voting NC and IA, good news, not great, and possibly great hard numbers.

[grantcart]

The early voting news is good, not great, and possibly great.

The good news is that with the possible exception of Colorado the Obama campaign is mounting a huge GOTV effort and will almost certainly be going into every swing state with a huge lead. That's the good news.

In North Carolina for example MattTX at DailyKos reports

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/27/1150096/-NC-Early-Voting-Day-9-Yes-Virginia-Obama-Really-Can-Win-North-Carolina


is
Early Voting in NC on Thursday and Friday was pretty consistent with the pattern we saw in Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday early voting. 170,215 people voted on Thursday and 173,543 more voted on Friday.

Overall, 1,352,147 people have voted and President Obama has built up an estimated margin of about 117,939 votes.

The not great news is that in 2008 the President was up 170,000 at the same time. It all comes down to one question, "How many early votes are from regular voters and how many are from so called 'sporadic voters'. There is good evidence that Romney's numbers are simply shuffling election day voters to vote earlier while the President's numbers include sizeable numbers of new or sporadic voters.

It will take more days of reporting to know for sure. North Carolina is going to be very very close, but the President will probably head into election day with an advantage and a fair chance to win. This is 'not great' news.

What makes this also 'possibly great news' is that Romney has to turn a whole bunch of states from bue to red. Give him Indiana, and after that the going gets tough. If Romney does win North Carolina but only by the narrowest of margins it is logical to conclude that Romney isn't going to have enough momentum in other states where Obama's margin was larger than the 14,000 in NC to overturn them.

North Carolina is going to be very very close and Romney really needs a big win in NC not a cliff hanger if he's also going to be taking any other 2008 Obama states to the Republican side.

Nevad also is showing very good numbers as reported by fightingregistrar at DailyKos

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/26/1150455/-Nevada-Early-Voting-Update-10-25-12

In the previous daily report, Democrats bested Republicans by 5,202 ballots cast. In this one, Democrats outstripped Republicans by 5,535. In fact, the Republican percentage went down among early voters since the previous report. These are very solid numbers for us in Clark County, especially considering that Romney is contesting Nevada much more vigorously than McCain did four years ago.

Now, here are the cumulative figures, including mail-in ballots:

Dems 105,338 (49.75%)
Reps 69,294 (32.73%)
Inds 37,107 (17.52%)

TOTAL 211,739

As of this report, 24.86% of the 851,803 active voters in Clark County have voted. That is huge. At this point in 2008, about 17% of all active voters had voted.

(Washoe County, the other large county is basically split exactly even. The two counties account for 90% of the vote. A sizeable win in Clark County determines the state results)

Other notes from McDonald at George Mason

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-p-mcdonald/early-voting-mesmerizing_b_2027200.html


Iowa, 400,000 absentee and early votes, 44% Dems, 30% Rep.

Florida 1.1 million cast with Republicans 45 to Dems 40%, but and this is a big but, in Florida Republicans normally have a 12 point advantage in early/absentee voting and Dems make it up on election day.

[CoffeeCat]

1. As far as Iowa goes...

There are 3 million people in Iowa. Roughly just under half vote. So, if we've got 400,000 who have voted, we can estimate that this is 35 percent of the electorate.

That really is amazing that we're that far ahead in Iowa. 44 Dem to 30 Rep (with the remaining Indies).

The Iowa ground game is truly phenomenal. Iowa passed a law that allows "satellite voting." To obtain a "satellite voting location" you need 100 signatures. Obama took full advantage of this. In Iowa, there are 56 satellite voting locations on-campus at Iowa colleges. These satellite locations are up for two weeks, up until the election.

Isn't that just brilliant??? College students don't have to leave their campus to vote. These locations are there because the Obama campaign took full advantage of Iowa's laws.

The Obama campaign has been very creative with these satellite voting locations. I saw one at a Hispanic grocer store near the interstate.

They really are microtargeting. This campaign has totally gone granular, and I have a feeling that Obama will be able to pull out these victories in close swing states--precisely because of these tactics across many states that microtarget voters right down to their college campuses and neighborhoods.

It really is genius.

[grantcart]

3. NPR had a good story about satellite voting, and how the Dems were running circles around the Reps

http://www.npr.org/2012/10/24/163560324/vote-while-you-shop-pop-up-poll-sites-sweep-iowa

A Big Push For Democrats

In Iowa, only 100 signatures are required to petition county officials to set up a satellite voting spot. The polling booth at La Tienda was petitioned by the Obama campaign, and the Democrats are staging events to highlight the pop-up voting effort. Across the street, Latinos for Obama is hosting a block party featuring music, tamales and an out-of-state guest: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

"Today is a little rally to make sure we all go and vote early," Villaraigosa says. "Because I know, we've heard it: 'Oh Villaraigosa, I forgot to vote, I was working.' "

But there are no excuses this time, he says. "You can vote today; you can vote across the street."

The Democrats are also targeting college students across Iowa. Fifty-three polling booths are being established on campuses across the state over two weeks this month.


Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University, says that's a savvy move on the Democratic Party's part, "because so much of the Democratic turnout is younger voters and minority voters, who tend to be less likely to vote."

[LisaL]

2. NC is doing great so far.

The question is, if we can run large enough margin by election day.

[Kteachums]

4. Go Obama! Get out the vote and win this thing!

[David Zephyr]

5. Thank you so much for these detailed updates.

I keep looking for your posts because you lay it all out with the spreadsheets and I want you to know that someone really appreciates the work.

[grantcart]

8. thank you

[goclark]

13. grantcart, thanks for your post We need to keep kicked

and know that if we Get Out The Vote --- we will win!

[demwing]

6. That's actually GREAT news!!!

Obama is currently at 113% of his 2008 vote total. Romney is at 130% of McCain's 2008 total.

If those percentages hold:

Obama 2008 (1,454,531) * 1.13 = 1,643,620
Repubs 2008 (1,187,398) * 1.30 = 1,543,617

Obama wins North Carolina by 100,000 votes, or about 3%.

I'm calling NC for Obama right now. Book mark it.

[demwing]

7. another way to look at this

We lose about 22% of our 2008 lead each 5th day--it's uncanny. At 5 days we were 22% down, at 10 days we are 44% down.

If, at the end of 20 days of early voting, the trend has held, we'll have lost 88% of our 2008 margin. If true, the 267132 vote margin we held in 2008 will be reduced to about 58,769 votes.

Which will translate into a 1 - 2% win!!! Booyah!

[onenote]

24. Where did we have a 267,132 vote margin?

[grantcart]

11. The issue comes down to whether or not Romney votes are McCain voters or

have they added new voters

As Kos points out

But here's the other part of that equation—Republican voters are some of the most reliable: wealthier, older and white. They will generally turn out come hell or high water. So it doesn't matter whether they turn out early or late. They're not adding to the GOP's vote pile.

Democratic base groups, on the other hand, are some of the least reliable voters—poor, brown and/or young. By banking early votes, Democrats can be assured that they're actually getting their unreliable voters to the polls, thus allowing them to focus GOTV efforts on those who still haven't voted.

So every Democratic vote represents locking in a more unstable voting population while a Romney vote represents simply moving a Republican vote from election day.

It is early, it will be close, but it is looking good.

[demwing]

12. New Votes v. Early Votes

you're spot on. If Rs move votes from the 6th to now, that's not an increase. If Dems are getting new votes to the polls during the early vote period, it should erase any lead Rmoney has in any polls.

It's the turnout, not the timing

[onenote]

23. I'm not following your math.

In 2008, after building a 170,000 vote lead in the early voting, President Obama held on to win by the narrowest of margins -- 14,000 votes. The final total was 2,142,651 to 2,128,474.

How do your numbers translate a smaller margin in early voting into an election day victory by a margin that is 7 times as great as the margin four years ago?

[beac]

9. Really appreciate these posts.

I love a good spreadsheet... and good news!

[grantcart]

10. thanks

[faithfulcitizen]

14. great post! Sorry, I have a dumb question:

Have the early votes been counted & reported or do we just have polling data about those who have already voted? In other words, is there a "% reporting" number that is public knowledge in the early voting states? Thanks in advance!

[grantcart]

15. We know who has voted but we don't know how they voted.

The projections are based on party breakdown and projections on independent voting from the area. If you link back to the original article he explains his methodology.

Everyday the campaigns go to the polling stations and get the names of those that have voted and cross them off their GOTV list which details all of the people that they know support their candidate or who they believe that they lean toward their candidate. Then they call and have people drop by to see if they need help in getting to the poll.

From a statistical point of view the important thinkg is not so much having a perfect methodology as it is comparing numbers from 4 years ago.

Since they have the same numbers used in the same methodology 4 years ago we can tell how this cycle compares to the previous cycle. Its going to be close in NC, real close.

[faithfulcitizen]

16. ok, that's what I thought...thanks so much for the education!

[blue-kite]

17. What do you mean 'good evidence' that Romney is shuffling one stack to another? What evidence?

[grantcart]

18. That's what the links are for. If you want the indepth discussion, go there

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/30/1152351/-NC-Early-Voting-Day-12-Hints-That-Obama-is-Turning-Out-Sporadic-Voters-But-Sandy-Throws-a-Wildcard

for example

Of the 545k who didn't vote early in 2008, 241k are Dem, 171k are Rep, and 130k are Unafilliated. So Reps have shifted 43k from election day to early, while Dems have shifted only 20k, indicating a lot more NEW voters for Dems than Reps.

[goclark]

20. txs grantcart...k and r

This is so important!

[TroyD]

19. Shouldn't Obama be leading Colorado?

He's ahead in many of the polls there.

[VirginiaTarheel]

25. Yeah, polls have swung toward Obama in Colorado this week

Is there a disconnect with out early vote effort there? Was early voting pushed big in CO by us?

[chapel hill dem]

21. Here is the update from yesterday's early voting

No votes for a specific candidate have been counted yet.
Note: As a life-long North Carolinian, I need to point out that registration and voting patterns are not the same. Many registered Democrats are older blue dogs (conservative) and the unaffiliated voters are all over the map any given year.

Looking forward to a huge ground game!

2008 Registered Democrats 1,238,261 51.77%
Registered Republicans 717,859 30.01%
Unaffiliated Voters 434,092 18.15%
Libertarian 1,550 0.07%
Total 2,391,767

2012 Registered Democrats 1,083,225 47.98% - 12.5%
Registered Republicans 718,553 31.82% + 0.09%
Unaffiliated Voters 451,488 20.00% + 4.01%
Libertarian 4,628 0.20%
Total 2,257,894

Source:
http://www.carolinatransparency.com/votetracker/

sorry about the formatting!

[grantcart]

22. understand and thanks