Historically, Republicans have had an advantage over Democrats in terms of absentee balloting; Democrats tend to outperform Republicans in terms of in-person early voting. These disparities are rooted in geography - it's easier to get people to vote in person in cities, and Democrats do well in cities, and it's easier to get people to vote by mail in more rural areas, and Republicans tend to do better in rural areas. Republicans tend to bank more absentee votes than Dems do early votes, in part because a key Democratic urban constituency: African Americans, have been suspicious of early voting.
That's why the Democratic leads in the early vote - the only hard data we have - is so significant.
In Florida, when the in-person and vote-by-mail totals are
added together, Democrats have about a 325,000 vote lead heading into the election. In Ohio, according to Democrats,
they've banked a mid-six figure margin - and their "stretch" goal was only to
achieve parity. According to GOP data, in every battleground
state with party registration and early voting -- except for Florida and North Carolina -- McCain Obama is
doing better among low-propensity Democrats and swing voters than McCain is among low-propensity Republicans and swing voters. In Florida, Republicans say that McCain
has turned out 15,000 more infrequently-voting Republicans than Obama's turned
out infrequently-voting Democrats. The
margin in North Carolina is 30,000 - although Obama's overall lead is very large. (The Obama campaign disputes this analysis of sporadic voters.)
One top Democrat worries that maybe the early voting numbers mean that the Democrats have done a good job turning out voters early but can't replicate their success tomorrow. There's been little research into the relationship between early voting levels and overall turnout, but there is a correlation, Norm Ornstein tells me.
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