Also this fascinating @henryredrobin article on the debates on the unfairness of the criminal legal system via the DA election of a small Wisconsin county, a very rare county with a contested DA race in the entire state. wisconsinexaminer.com/2020/08/13/sha…
Turnout rate in 2016, as of 14 days from ED:
—12% of registered Dems, 10% of registered Republicans, 7% of others
Turnout rate in 2020, as of 15 days from ED:
—31% of registered Dems, 19% of registered Republicans, 18% of others
Colorado has in-person options that Republicans who want to avoid mail-in voting will use. But it’s also a universal mail-in state so you’d expect many more to vote that way than elsewhere—and indeed you see a same rush to vote among them too. But Dems’ urgency off chart.
To sum up... I don’t know what to make of all of this, other than to say that the patterns bear little resemblance to past cycles, so we’re all just waiting.
I combined into one spreadsheet various pieces of info on the Texas Secretary of State website: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
Includes number of votes cast so far in each county — as a share of the 2016 vote, & a share of all RVs.
Also 2016/2018 results in each, & electorate growth.
What it shows so far: Some populous Dems counties are voting a bit above statewide average as a share of past elections (Travis, Harris, Hidalgo, El Paso), as are some swing counties that voted for Beto in 2018 (Nueces, Williamson). But so are MANY ruby red conservative counties.
Which is to say, big turnout in Houston or Austin doesn't tell a story of asymmetry here.
But there's an overall story of energy that's noteworthy even if doesn't say much about result.
I do want to say again today that it’s important to place the long lines, where they happened, in the context of the repeat similar history, cycle after cycle, in that same location. Especially when official responses are so eerily similar, & therefore predictable, as years ago.
And there’s a big diff between understaffed PA or WI county officials submerged by an entirely unprecedented surge in mail voting, and officials in a county that has faced a particular documented issue in the past going thru the same things again.
Yes, it’s so key to keep in mind is that many things that go wrong are about human error, or good faith bad luck, etc! But we can’t abstract from (recent!) history of a place when assessing this.
Gwinnett started in-person voting today; but it’s been voting for years, like this.
A major red flag for Democrats: NYT/Siena has Senator Gary Peters leading GOP challenger John James by just 1% (43/42), even as Biden leads 48/40 in the same sample.
GOP is pouring money here, & YouGov found a gap too
(+3% for Peters +6% for Biden).
A loss for Dems here would be a major blow to their quest for a Senate majority, effectively requiring them to pick-up 5 GOP seats instead of 4 just to get to 50/50.
Dems respondents are splitting 97/1 for Biden, but only 87/4 for Peters.
GOP respondents are splitting 90/4 for both Trump & James.
So room to grow for Peters... but he'll have to contend with James keeping a positive rating (45/32) despite now-2 consecutive capmaigns.