GA Early Voting Update 11/05
Democrats had a real monster Friday to close out early voting. For the first time on a non-weekend day the black % of the early electorate actually went up (From 29.1% to 29.2%) and the white percentage went down (from 57.9% to 57.5%). The in the bank margin went from +86k to +108k, and there’s still 57k absentee ballots that could come back that the Dems would win by +16k if they all came back.
The any early+any 18 voter who remains electorate is now just shy of a whopping 4.3mm and Dems would win this electorate by +42k. The real big story yesterday was voters who didn’t vote in 2018. That total is now 532k (+76k just yesterday) and the Dems would win that vote by +62k. So big election day looming but Republicans only win the existing 2018 electorate by -20k. Our new voters are 3x more Democratic than the old electorate is Republican, and we’ve also turned out a significantly more Democratic ‘18 voter so far (they’re +46k).
Since there won’t be that many more votes coming in before election day, I’ll look tomorrow more in depth on who is more likely to show up. Right now I think it’s about 1.9mm people which would put the final electorate at 4.4mm and I’ll walk through how I get there.
But just to close out today, let’s look at the final day voters and how they compare to 2020’s final day and 2021’s final day. Can we get any clues on who is voting on election day by who showed up on the final day? Maybe. In 2020, I show 258k showing up on the final day of early voting (or absentee ballots coming in that day). It was 28% black, 69% under 50, and the Biden score was only 49.6%. Whereas going into that day it was 51.4% cumulative. So, a pretty young electorate, but also with a fairly high number of Republicans. And at 28%, not a very high black number for final day during a high turnout election. And 50k of these votes that were booked on the last day of 2020 early vote were absentee ballots which were heavily Democratic. If those 50k were 70/30 Democratic, the actual in person vote may have been as low as 45% Democratic (maybe even lower, 70/30 could be not Dem enough for late absentees that year). And then what happened? Trump won election day by -220k. Biden only got 38%. So, very Republican final day of in-person early voting and then we get a very Republican election day.
What about 2021? Well, the spreadsheet I was keeping that year was heavily indexed to the Biden score, so I don’t have numbers in quite the same way but I do have this: daily counts for voters who had been >50% likely to support Biden and those who were <50% likely. And this is what it showed. 32k absentee ballots came in on the last day and 59% of them came from the >50 Biden group. 145k people voted in person and only 40% came from the >50 Biden group. So you have again in ‘21 runoff a heavily Republican final day. And then on election day you had big turnout with Ossoff only getting 36% of the votes.
So there you have it, in ‘20 and ‘21 uncharacteristically Republican-leaning days closed out early voting and foreshadowed big margins for the GOP on election day. This year? 30% black, only 54% white and 55% Democratic. 243k total. Even if you throw out the Dem heavy absentees that rolled in, you’re still >54% Democratic for the final day’s in person turnout. I think and hope this foreshadows good turnout. I’ll try to upload final day turnout for a few past elections and see if it was predictive, but it feels like it points in that direction. And look, I really don’t think people would go stand in an hour long line if it wasn’t a symptom of larger enthusiasm to vote on the actual election day (and perhaps a misplaced fear that the line will be even longer then, it won’t because there’s 20x more precincts open for only ~10x more voters, but individual voters don’t know that).
Election day was pretty competitive in ‘18, even though Kemp won. Abrams vote share was pretty close to her overall. Same goes for ‘16 for Clinton and ‘14 for Nunn. Though it’s not a huge sample size, there were two special elections for state House seats in Cobb that Republicans won this year. In both of those races, Democrats election day % was only about 5% lower than their total margin. Not at all like Ossoff getting 36% in an election that he won with 51%. I feel like a lot of people have over-invested in a narrative that says Republicans are guaranteed to have a huge election day without realizing that most Dems who used to vote in person at their precinct are back to their old habits as well.
Again, we will see! Apologies in advance for any typos I know there were a few in yesterday’s email.