Democrats Are Racking Up Some Good Early Voting Numbers
Millions of people have already voted this year—close to 1 million in Florida alone—which means election observers have lots of tea leaves to read. If you read the whole cup of tea leaves at once, things look good:Most of them voted during a period when Clinton had a national lead — a narrow lead, if they voted a few weeks ago or a large lead if they voted more recently. So while it's probably not a surprise that early vote tallies in several swing states show a shift to the Democrats since 2012, it still means that Clinton has a greater percentage of banked votes than President Obama did at this point four years ago.
State by state, there’s some definite good news:
Democratic early turnout has stayed steady in North Carolina compared to 2012, while Republicans have dropped by about 14,500. In Nevada, Democrats have a smaller early voting deficit today than they did at this point in 2012. And Democrats are slightly ahead in Arizona in the early vote so far, though they are lagging Republicans in the tally of how many Arizonans have requested ballots.
In Florida, Republicans hold a narrow lead in ballots returned, but at this point in 2008 they held a much larger lead.
There are also some places where it looks like Democrats need to make a push, like Iowa, where they hold a lead in ballots returned, but a smaller lead than at the same point in 2012. But then again, that’s still an early vote lead and, on top of it, Clinton has a pretty substantial electoral vote lead without Iowa, according to current polling.
It’s almost like investing in a ground game might have concrete benefits. But never mind that—let Donald Trump tell you about his rally size.
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This was repostede from Daily Kos.
