The Early Vote

I’ve spent a lot of time reading up on the early vote and the trends for early voting. Here are a few things you should note. The TL;DR version is this: Democrats are not meeting key metrics nationwide for early voting and Republicans are surpassing metrics, which suggests the doom for Democrats is real.

First, the early vote is a terrible indicator of anything. Every year things change. But also, the early vote depicts general patterns. If a person always buys Heinz ketchup, the odds are the person is going to buy Heinz. If a person is always an early voter, the odds are the person will vote early this time.

Second, early voting usually does favor Democrats. While many Democrats get their enthusiasm from early voting because so many Democrats vote early, the amount of early voting, where it happens, and its relationship to Election Day voting all provide a broader picture.

Third, while Democrats tend to vote early, Republicans tend to surge in the last week of early voting. So a wide margin for Democrats during early voting can be offset by Republicans surging at the end and then showing up on election day. Where things become useful is finding patterns of Democrats or Republicans not building up early voting numbers to offset Election Day numbers.

That said, I’ve looked at a lot of early voting in the country, and if I were a Democrat, I’d be freaking out right about now. Here’s what’s happening and why Democrats should be freaked out.

Please note, given the work done to collect this, I’m making this available for paid subscribers only. But it is very easy to subscribe and get all the details, including why it looks more and more like Democrats are on the verge of losing a key Senate race that will cost them control of the U.S. Senate.