Sigh. I guess everyone is going to overreact to early-voting numbers again. Here are all the ways that can go wrong:
1. We don't actually know how early voters voted; we just know what party they're registered with, and there's no guarantee that they voted for that party's candidate, especially in states where voter reg is weird like Ohio.
2. We don't know how independent early voters are voting. A 40–30% Democratic EV lead is meaningless if all the independents vote for Republicans.
3. We don't know if Democratic enthusiasm in the 1st week of early voting is part of an overall rise in Democratic interest that will continue through the end of EV, or if they are just people who would've voted anyway voting early because they're so pumped.
4. The types of people who vote early vs. will vote on Election Day are inherently demographically different, so they might vote totally differently too. And in many (though not all) states, the Election Day vote will outnumber the early vote.
5. Polls account for early voters anyway, so it's double-counting to mentally "add" Democrats' early-vote advantage onto their advantage in polls.
