Vice President Kamala Harris consistently maintains a narrow lead. Polling aggregationit was, and still is, a battle for turnout.
As I’ve said repeatedly, pollsters are very good at determining what different demographics are thinking, but when it comes to turnout, based on historical trends and other data, You’ll have to make an educated guess. There is a big difference if there is 17% of voters under 30 votedor 25%. And no one knows what that number will end up being.
But given Harris’ sustained lead, however narrow, and Democrats’ performance in recent cycles, we have the numbers. If the results come out, we will win. It’s strange that anyone would think that the Democrats might underperform and we won’t, but that’s the Republican Party’s best hope. In other words, low-performing voter groups stay home.
But if (very) early voting is any indication, that’s not happening.
To be clear, early voting does not tell us at all whether Harris or Donald Trump is currently in the lead. Even if Democrats overwhelmingly defeat Republicans in early voting, they could be overwhelmed by high Republican turnout on Election Day. The most motivated Democrats vote early, but the least motivated or apathetic Democrats may forget to vote later. Or Republicans could cannibalize those numbers by putting more energy into early voting and cannibalizing same-day votes.
Don’t look at the early voting numbers like many people do and say “Democrats are ahead of the pace in 2020” as if that’s inherently a good thing. it’s not. The name of the game is “Get more votes than your opponent,” and early voting counts as many votes as on-the-day voting.
but what is it can what to do is suggest That our worst nightmare, the fallout of Democratic voters, never happens. In other words, if Democrats are reluctant, don’t show up, or are less motivated to vote, we’ll likely find clues in early voting. And we are not.
Early voting data will be provided by TargetSmart, a data company that works with Democratic campaigns. As you can see in the image below, things are broken down by political party.but The parties are “modeled” and are not indicative of voters’ proven partisanship, nor are they indicative of the candidates they voted for. Rather, it reflects TargetSmart’s model of early voters’ partisan leanings. Comparisons between cycles are not perfect, as models are improved regularly.
With these caveats aside, let’s look at the following: battleground statesIn , a powerful vote harvesting operation is working hard to boost Democratic turnout. Here are the numbers as of Friday afternoon:
So far, Democratic early voting numbers in battleground states are higher than they were at this point in 2020 and 2022. Again, the gap is expected to narrow in the coming weeks, but it remains less than 3% of TargetSmart’s estimate. will depend on turnout in the election, but so far the Democratic Party is off to a strong start. (As a side note, early voting this year is basically guaranteed to be lower than in 2020, when people were more likely to vote by mail due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)
However, Tom Bonier, senior advisor at TargetSmart, said: pointed out On Friday, “by gender, women make up a large share of early voting.” [Pennsylvania] higher than at this point in 2020 and on par with 2022, suggesting a continuation of the post-Dobs environment (as seen in other data and elsewhere).”
Historically, women vote Democratic more often than men. According to data from Pew Research CenterIn 2020, 55% of women voted for Joe Biden, but only 44% voted for Donald Trump. But what about among women of color? Biden won Latino women by 24 points and Black women by 90 points.
That shows good for this. year.
“Now, if you look at the racial breakdown of female early voters. [Pennsylvania]Women of color, particularly Black women, have seen the largest increase in voter turnout, at 248% of the vote so far in 2020, compared to 146% of white women’s turnout. Bonnier said. tweeted on friday.
“Republicans converted many voters to early voting on Election Day, but Democratic turnout, particularly among people of color, offset any potential gains for Trump,” he said. added.
There are very early signs favoring the Democratic ticket, with Black women leading the way and women overall overwhelmingly voting early.
Now let’s take it home.
