Early Voting: How's it Going?

First and foremost, as I’m writing, it’s 15 October, opening day for early voting in Georgia, and President Jimmy Carter will be proudly casting his ballot today for Kamala Harris. HE ROCKS! By 1 pm on 15 October, Georgia announced that the previous record for first-day early voting had been smashed, with 6 hours left to go.

My husband and I often talk politics. This is actually sad for him because my level of minutiae can be overwhelming. (Sorry, sweetheart, I love you, but as you know, I cannot help myself.) His question, on a lot of issues, is “who benefits?”

In looking at early voting numbers, two interesting things diverge. The MSM tends to say that the Convicted Felon is “sweeping”, but the raw data indicates something else entirely. The MSM, and the pundits and polling companies that contribute to it, have a vested interest in everything being close, in always making the Convicted Felon look as good as possible, and in setting barriers to learning the truth about the Harris campaign. They benefit FINANCIALLY. Let’s never forget that. In addition, while they may not be rooting for the Convicted Felon, they erroneously believe that they would survive a second administration. (They’re wrong.)

So what do we know? If we read The Hill, in their article Trump edges out Harris with early voters in battleground states, they open with:

Former President Trump has a slight edge over Vice President Harris with early voters in battleground states, new polling shows, a promising sign for the Republican in the highly competitive presidential race.

Is this true?

NO! Despite Mark Penn saying it’s true. If you don’t know Mark Penn¹, he’s one of the advisors who cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election. And his company is the source of the POLL that claims the Convicted Felon is winning.

Why is it wrong information? Because they’re looking at polling instead of looking at the actual data.

A few caveats before we dig in. We know, from state records, WHO has voted early. This means gender, age, party affiliation (if the state registers by party and not all do) and other demographic information. The data do NOT inform on HOW those people voted. Next, we cannot exactly compare early voting and mail in ballots in 2024 to 2020. First, because there was a pandemic in 2020, which likely made more people vote remotely due to Covid. Plus, the Convicted Felon was everywhere telling his minions to NOT vote early. That only votes cast on Election Day counted. LIAR! The GOP has tried to convince their voters to vote early this year.

Therefore, we should look at the numbers with the following in mind: if GOP numbers are higher than 2020, that’s good for them. If Democratic numbers approach or exceed 2020, that’s good for us.

A big question mark is young voters. Many didn’t vote in 2020 because they weren’t old enough. So their numbers will be a mystery in terms of who will vote early, who will vote on Election Day, and who will stay home.

Here’s some data on Michigan. All of it courtesy of Tom Bonier of TargetSmart. More of their data here. (Use “View Type” on the right side bar for specific information, which I excluded from the screen shots.)

What do we see? The gender gap (women +11.9) is currently bigger than the gap was at this point in 2020 and 2022. Not by a lot, but gender gaps are good for us. This is even more marked when we drill down in the data. A lot of that is being driven by huge turnout from Black women. While 2024 early votes are at 55% of where they were in 2020, Black voters are at 77%, and older Black women are at 115%. That shows enthusiasm.

I’m not saying this ad had anything to do with it, but it is incredibly effective.

The Pennsylvania early vote totals are not quite as encouraging as the Michigan data, but it’s still incredibly close. In addition, anecdotally, a lot of my friends and neighbors (and I!), who all voted absentee in 2020, are voting on Election Day to offset any “red mirage”, and because we likely won’t know the full PA results until Friday or Saturday, unless it ends up being a wave election, but we should know full Election Day returns by early morning Wednesday.

So there you have it. MSM claiming “true information” predicated on Mark Penn’s polls as opposed to actual numbers.

SHEESH! SMH.

Remember - polls are bleeding edge snapshots, actual data is real.

1. As a complete aside, I had the glorious opportunity to yell at Mark at both a DNC meeting in June 2016, along with the DNC Convention that summer, and he was gracious as I listed all the things he was doing wrong.