Last night I mentioned Survey USA's Georgia early voting numbers that show Barack Obama with a 6% lead among those who've already voted (while McCain is ahead by 8%.) Nate Silver brings us all 5 states where SUSA has some early vote numbers and the results are rather stunning.
NM: Obama +23 (statewide: Obama +7)
OH: Obama +18 (statewide: Obama +5)
GA: Obama +6 (statewide: McCain +8)
IA: Obama +34 (statewide: Obama +13)
NC: Obama +34 (statewide: McCain +3)
As Nate says:
...Obama is leading by an average of 23 points among early voters in these five states, states which went to George W. Bush by an average of 6.5 points in 2004.Is this a typical pattern for a Democrat? Actually, it's not. According to a study by Kate Kenski at the University of Arizona, early voters leaned Republican in both 2000 and 2004; with Bush earning 62.2 percent of their votes against Al Gore, and 60.4 percent against John Kerry. In the past, early voters have also tended to be older than the voting population as a whole and more male than the population as a whole, factors which would seem to cut against Obama or most other Democrats.
But no other Democrat has had a turnout operation like Barack does and no other Democrat has excited the youth and African-Americans the way Barack does. For just one indication of the enthusiasm driving this early vote, check out this dispatch from early voting in Georgia yesterday:
Just cast an early vote in Cobb County. Only took one hour, forty-five minutes -- exactly three weeks before Election Day.A long line folded itself three times in a relatively hot October sun, shortly before lunch-time. Perhaps a dozen people couldn't stick it out -- they left before getting to the front of the line.
Every one of those who gave up the effort was white. Once in, not a single African-American walked away while I was there. If voter fatigue becomes a factor over the next three weeks, and on Election Day itself, one has to wonder if Republicans are more likely to lose out than Democrats.
And while Nate is right, of course, to point out that "it's unlikely that John McCain is actually losing all that many persuadable voters to the early voter tallies," I still maintain that every vote that McCain doesn't bank before election day, is one vote that is less likely to actually vote on election day. If this thing looks on Nov. 3rd to be a blowout for Obama, who do you think is more likely to stay home on the 4th?
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