(UPDATE 1pm: MI, WI, PA updated) More than 34.3 million people have already voted. Over 15.9 million Mail Ballots have been returned, while more than 18.4 million people have voted Early In-Person. Some states are adding votes at a very rapid pace, with Georgia soon approaching 50% of its 2020 turnout!
Here are the vote totals so far, plus the 2024 Early Vote as a percentage of the Total 2020 Vote, for eight swing states:
GA 47.2% 2,368,812
NC 41.4% 2,296,511*
AZ 30.2% 1,032,284
MI 25.5% 1,424,592<
FL 29.9% 3,332,925*
NV 29% 408,835
WI 21.6% 715,395<
PA 18.4% 1,281,847<
(Vote totals and percentages are from Prof. Michael McDonald’s Election Project, which in turn are based on official reports from the various Secretaries of State. When I update, I’ll change my time-stamp.)
Georgia has been relatively slow the last couple of days. We have to see how this weekend goes.
NC, the downside I mentioned, the lackluster turnout in city centers, the coast with new R leaning voters are showing up. The further deterioration of the eastern plains is still unknown, as most D voted are Black Democrats at this time. The upside also shows with Triangle showing further bluing, and Asheville circle hits its fair share now.
The current R lead is mostly an artifact of rural piedmont voting early. Not sure this will last into the final electorate. So don’t worry too much about that top number.
Overall I still think GA has way more upside than North Carolina.
I do know there’s a massive GOTV effort in North Carolina. This morning I chatted with a friend who went to NC specifically to canvass for several weeks! I know Mecklenburg and Buncombe counties (with Asheville) are high priorities.
Georgia might be "slowing down" a tad but, as a percentage of its 2020 count, the state has the highest turnout in the nation.
“Slowing down” is relative to the super charged first several days.
In the past the every last day of early voting would be super busy. My guess is we may see a busy last week. The super voters will be nearly all voted. And we will see how the lower intensity voters will do.
The NYTimes/Sienna poll has Harris ahead among those the 9 percent who already voted 59-40. If this is vaguely true, could someone more knowledgeable than me interpret its effect on the early vote in swing states?
As the OP wrote, 32.6 million people have already voted. That's going to be significantly more than 9% of the electorate. Considering that the poll is obviously wrong about that, I'm not inclined to trust it about anything else.
Problem is, they didn't list "already voted" as an option. Respondents had to volunteer it. Not clear that everyone who already voted did that rather than just going with "almost certain".
I'm extremely wary of connecting polling to early election vote data for a million reasons, but as an exercise, could that mean some of those early Rs are super motivated anti-Trump R voters? Eh, we'll know more post-election.
If 32.6 million is only 9% of the total electorate, then that would mean a projected electorate of over 362.2 million voters. That's more voters than there are total residents of the 50 states + District of Columbia.
32.6 million being 16 2/3% (i.e., one-sixth) of the total electorate would be a little over 195.2 million voters, which is close to what I would guesstimate is the national turnout ceiling (around 195 million voters).
In a new survey from polling firm Leger, 64 per cent of Canadian respondents said if they could cast a ballot, they’d put their support behind vice-president Harris while 21 per cent would support former president Donald Trump. Fifteen per cent weren't sure what they would do.
Yeah, my impression is that a long series of questionable decisions by Jones didn’t exactly endear him to people who could and should have been his political allies.
He also didn't get the WFP line, so he'll lose a few votes to the right-wing plant the ill-informed party voters nominated. I think Jones might squeak it out, but another candidate might be running away with it in this Biden+10 district.
He's bad at politics; he should try a different life course(generic D would win that seat, if the other polls in California and New York are on target); I might add that this election may allow Lawler to become entrenched
Dunno, I think a good Democratic candidate could still have a chance to beat him if Jones doesn't, and we can't assume midterms will go Republican even if a Democrat is in the White House.
Terrific that The Downballot is doing an event with Aaron Rupar! But the notification states: "Note that you’ll need the Substack app to participate."
I use my MacBook for all online activity, never my cell phone (besides, no coverage where we live). Any chance of being able to access this event through the Firefox browser on my Mac? Or via Zoom?
Unfortunately, no. :( Substack is promoting these Dialogues in part to promote its app. It's possible there will be a recording made, though. I'll find out!
Steve Daines to campaign with Sam Brown because Republicans believe Latinos in NV have swung right in light of the early vote demographics. DB posted above the amount that Republicans are dumping: 6 million
It just seems like Daines is a weird choice to campaign with him. He's the head of the NRSC, but I'm also not aware of him being affiliated with Nevada in any way, or associated with groups like Latinos, or anything all that special as a speaker or campaigner.
NYT-Siena national is tied, as it has been all cycle with the exception of one Harris +3 from early October. Interestingly, Nate Cohn says it's not inconceivable that Harris could find herself on the right end - for once - of an EC/PV split. There are indications that she's held up well vs. Biden 2020 in the states where Ds did well in the midterms, and lost ground where we did badly in the midterms (FL, CA, etc.).
Crosstabs look sort of normal, if a bit too friendly to Harris among seniors and a bit too friendly to Trump among young voters. Hispanic sample a bit too R (just Harris +10). Party ID is R+, which again I'm skeptical about. GCB tied.
Given that NYT-Siena national polls have been to the right of the averages this cycle by a couple points, I guess I'll take it...?
EC/PV vote split on Harris's behalf would be sweet revenge after a quarter century of disingenuous civics lessons from Electoral College defenders on the right. Given my suspicion that California, Texas, Florida, and New York all swing rightward this year, the EC/PV split for Harris isn't particularly far-fetched, but it would require a combination of at least four battleground states (which were all at least 2 points to the right of the national average in 2020) to move an average of 3 points leftward than the rest of the country in 2024, which seems like a stretch.
Actually, that only brings Harris to 269. She also needs NE-02, Nebraska’s "Blue Dot", although her victory there is more or less a certainty.
However, to guard against the risk of disloyal electors, she needs to win more states, placing her well beyond what I call MoS ("Margin of Steal"). It’s worth remembering that one of Trump’s false electors from 2016 *still* sits on Wisconsin’s Election Board!
I think FL definitely moves right relative to 2020. It's drawn loads of right-wing retirees and Dems got vaporized in 2022.
NY, probably a few points right in the NYC area given how badly Dems did in 2022.
CA was one of the few states to move right from 2016 to 2020, possibly because most of the nationwide leftward movement was among whites and CA's white population is both relatively small and relatively liberal. I wouldn't read anything into the 2022 results, as there was literally no state-level Dem campaign. It maybe moves another point or two to the right.
TX should not move right, at least relative to the nation. Its demographic creep heavily favors Dems and it's moved consistently to the left this century.
It's a fundamental flaw of human psychology that, even with ample evidence, people refuse to believe that bad things can happen until they do. The same way most people didn't believe that Roe v. Wade would be overturned until it was.
Or at least from Rick Scott! Ultimately though, I think most of the greedy geezers in Florida take comfort in the idea that when the Republicans they vote for promise to cut Social Security and Medicare, they're talking about their children's and grandchildren's SS and Medicare, not their own.
Yeah, I expect that as well. I’m feeling pretty optimistic though so I’m expecting most states that are already trending blue to continue to do so, and for reddening to at least decrease its rate, if not reverse, in most other states as well. There will be some exceptions of course. In states that one candidate is winning by 25-30+ points I’d be hesitant to attribute that to an actual shift vs just complacency, especially if there are no competitive down ballot races.
Agreed; Trump was not very impressive in Texas in the last 2 cycles and Cruz has never been popular; look at past elections where either Cornyn or Abbott on the ballot as comparison(not a total apples to apples comparison I know)
Not many.....basically because I think the primary demographic of voter expected to flip (the Nikki Haley Republican) already flipped in 2020 and there are vanishingly few prospects to add to that total.
I think Virginia and maybe Maryland have a good chance given that they're the heart of the Beltway and the regional implications of Trump's federal worker purge could squeeze out a few Trump 2020 holdouts fearful for their future.
Maybe a few more Yankee Republicans can flip in Upper New England (NH, ME, and CT seem like possibilities).
I'm not specifically predicting Georgia will improve from 2020 but it would be one of the top contenders because of demographics.
Outside of that, maybe Washington state and Alaska, along with one outlier....
Kansas. The demographics of suburban Kansas City seem uniquely tailored for flipping thousands more of their moderate Republican faction. Sharice Davids' performance two years ago shows that there's considerable room for Democratic growth even compared to 2020.
I haven't officially predicted this, but it wouldn't surprise me if Kansas puts up a weaker margin for Trump than Iowa, Ohio, or Florida this year.
Fair, obviously I’m more optimistic but I can agree with many of your points. For ME do you see any impact to ME-02 and what do you think about Golden’s chances?
Two other states I’m interested in your opinion on. NE, I think the trends there are similar to KS. I don’t think Harris is going to make major inroads, but I do think it will trend a bit blue. The Osborne campaign being such a surprise makes it a very interesting state. From polling it appears to be specific to him, but for a generic, mainstream Republican to be in this competitive a race implies there is some hope there.
The other is SC. I commented on it the other day and am still putting in some numbers but the idea that growth is primarily being spurred by retirees moving to Myrtle Beach area is just not backed up by numbers. Yes, Horry county has been one of the three fastest growing counties since 2020. But the other two (Charleston and Greenville) essentially all cancel each other out. When you look at the rest of the growth though, it is in blue trending counties.
I wonder if SC will swing rightward, simply due to depressed Democratic turnout compared to 2020, which featured a Senate race that was incorrectly perceived to be competitive.
That’s a very interesting theory. I’ll look into how the increased turnout in SC in 2020 compared to other states both with and without competitive Senate seats. Thanks for the idea!
Intuitively I say no(SC still has a huge AA number and a solid minority of folks I call 'sane Republicans' who are repulsed by Trump and have consistently been in opposition)
Good points on Nebraska and South Carolina. I expect a smaller rightward shift in those states for the same reasons you cite...certainly less than the national average. Particularly if Omaha turns out as blue as polling shows, Nebraska could see a slight statewide improvement.
As for Maine, I think any improvement there will be confined to ME-01. I don't see much chance for improvement in ME-02 and it could be the end of the line for Golden. Not quite there yet on predictions for him though.
I think NC will shift left marginally, given the active campaign. Triangle could shift by up to 100k net votes, and Asheville by some 10k. If Charlotte and Triad and east NC can hold decent AA turnout.
Will have further losses from the coast, and probably some turnout impact from the rural west. So could see the deficit shrinks or flips.
But to be honest, my guesstimate has the avg case as a 0.5% loss, and a rosier case but still within reasonable range gets her lead in hundreds of votes. And winning 1pt would require some unreasonable assumption (something like 5-6pt higher AA turnout than 2020)
Your analysis is well thought-out and has a lot of logic behind it, but I want to push back on this a bit:
"I think the primary demographic of voter expected to flip (the Nikki Haley Republican) already flipped in 2020 and there are vanishingly few prospects to add to that total."
Fair enough that that's what you think, but the fact that a certain cohort of Trump voters died and the likelihood that younger, less white people who replaced them will probably be more liberal is a prospect to add to that total, isn't it?
I still think that most states will swing left this year, if by small margins. I could see CA, NY, and FL swinging right, along with some of the Deep South (AL, MS, LA, and AR). HI and NV probably won't budge, and maybe there might be one or two other states that don't swing left. But I think the rest of them will.
I am beginning to think that CA could disappoint us this election. The PPIC polls on our ballot measures reported in today's Morning Digest are worrisome. The conservative props are trending yes, and some of the liberal props are trending no. In general the excitement in the air is absent.
Harris and Schiff will win easily. I've been hoping that at least five Republican House seats would go Dem (Gray and Salas in the Central Valley; Whitesides, Tran, and Rollins in SoCal), and that the most iffy Dem seat would stay Dem (Min, running for Porter's SoCal seat). I still think we'll win at least some of those races (say Gray, Whitesides, Min, and if the stars align, Tran). A gain of 1 to 3 House seats.
OK is an interesting one, I haven’t really looked into it since it is so red. That’s goin to be tough to evaluate unless it is a significant shift, and in that case I suspect we’re seeing that occur pretty much everywhere.
If Harris can actually flip Oklahoma County though that would at least be a promising start.
Oklahoma County's the only contender to flip this cycle, but Biden also made inroads into Tulsa and other relatively urban counties. There's probably some space for Trump to gain in rurals he won 70%+, but after that, it's like squeezing water from rocks.
Not that it'll make a difference, but some interesting trends nonetheless.
The Times also noted that Harris “still has room to grow” because 15 percent of voters said they were not fully decided on who to vote for. The poll found Harris has a 10-point lead among undecided voters with 42 percent of support compared to Trump’s 32 percent. When the poll was taken two weeks ago, The Times noted that Trump had a 1-point edge among undecided voters
I don't have a NYT membership so I didn't read the article, but when he says a PV/EC split what exactly is he saying? Does he think Trump could win the popular vote and lose the EC or is he saying that Trump could do appreciably better in the PV but do just as bad, if not worse, in the EC?
The former is an outcome that I think has almost no chance of happening. Because it probably requires Trump to do at least 3 points better in each of TX, NY and CA (and FL, but that one is likely) and I don't think that can happen without swing states being affected. The latter I think is very plausible. There were a total of 12 Gubernatorial and Senate races across the swing states and every single state had an R-Favorable polling error of at least 2 points. The only 2 races that didn't were the NV and GA-GOV races and in those states the senate races had that (the regular election in GA had the polling error, but the runoff was actually a point too D). If we get that level of polling error again across those states, she'll win every swing state except maybe GA and if he wins that one it'll be by margins similar to the one Biden had in 2020. That's an outcome that seems plausible to me.
I suppose anything is possible, but I'd put that outcome as just one step below so unlikely as to not be worth mentioning. I'd say Kamala's chance of winning TX and Trump's chances of winning MN (which I'd say are probabilistically relatively similar) are much more likely than the PV/EC split.
Biden's margin in the PV (4.5) is not that far off his deficit in TX (5.8) and Texas moved more left than the country did from 2016 to 2020. And in Minnesota, if the bottom completely falls out for Kamala it would probably be the first non-swing state to go for Trump. Both of these results make sense because it would fit with historical election results. Trump doing ~ 5 points better nationally but it being so concentrated or certain states being so impervious to it would be I think pretty ahistoric.
True - and one thing that struck me was that 9% already-voted, per NYT-Siena, is too small. It's more like 20% of the electorate that's already voted. Lag of the poll is canceled out by the fact that many votes are in the mail. It's possible, though, that it's too small because it wasn't listed as an option, responders had to volunteer it. So I can't say for sure.
Tom Bonier has a Twitter thread on the Marist poll. He focuses on AZ and thinks this is a very good sign for Harris. In 2020, he claims that the Republicans who voted early were more likely to have voted for Biden. The Marist data would provide some evidence for this being the case again.
Has anyone tried to add up what the 'expected' split of the current early vote would be based on party splits, or on geographic/demographic splits for states that don't have party registration? I think Harris would be ahead because of mail votes, but I'd think the margin would be less than 19 points.
It would have to be somewhere in the Central Valley, if such an AD exists. Tr*mp ain't happening in my Latino-heavy assembly district (AD-43, Northeast SFV, L. A. Co.)
Heather Cox Richardson has an insigtful review of the state and recent history of today’s MAGA-Republican Party. Her "Letters from an American" is always worth a read. I choose to subscribe but her excellent newsletter is free.
GOP netted almost 17k in requests while Dems netted 77.9k in returns this week. Another weekend of "in-person" voting & satellite drop-off locations starts tomorrow morning. 2 million requests should be hit tomorrow. I'm curious as to how high returns will get. Monday's update will be huge, especially in the big counties.
Just because they are doing an event they are calling Souls to the Polls doesn't mean many people will show up. This is a long-standing organic institutional event held by black churches in Georgia and North Carolina. Trying to forcibly replicate it in other states is unlikely to yield a significant number of votes. Even in Georgia, where this is biggest, they only get ~20k black voters on Sunday. Most of the voters in Georgia last Sunday were white.
Are the firewall targets for PA based on historic Election Day voting numbers? If so, wouldn’t they be over estimating what is most likely needed considering the increase we’re seeing in Republican early voting? (I will acknowledge it’s possible that these are truly “new” Republican voters, but that seems very unlikely and there have been polls showing that a significant amount of them voted on Election Day in 2020).
I’m trying to reconcile how Dems can be on target for the firewall, and potentially even exceed it considering the change in EV patterns, if they still need to have enough votes banked in to withstand the historic Republican advantage on ED.
Honestly, I think the firewall is pretty useless because this is the first "normal" election in which no-excuse mail-in voting is a thing in PA. It's great that Democrats are going to have sizable amount of votes banked going into Election Day but we don't know really know what that means.
USPS apparently delivered my ballot in Philadelphia on Wednesday, but my election ballot status still says pending/not received. Perhaps an indicator that there's a backlog of unprocessed ballots? Who knows. I sent an email asking for clarification but wouldn't be surprised if I don't receive a reply soon.
In my canvassing this cycle and in 2022 I’ve been struck by the fact that I was getting a handful of Registered Republicans who (1) were on my canvass list of about 45 doors and (2) expressed a preference for Shapiro (2022) and Harris (2024). All were older and seemed to be college educated - for example mentioning that they were teachers or referring to college friends.
I'm willing to bet that that's why the folks were on your canvassing lists; micro-targeting techniques found that they were potentially 'gettable' voters
I think Kamala's visit to Texas today (11 days before the election) is likely to get mentioned a lot in post-election commentary, no matter the election outcome. If she loses, this will be on the list of reasons, and one of the many ways her campaign is compared to Hillary's. If she wins, it may be held up as part of an unconventional strategy to build a winning coalition of young and Black voters in general, helping in the swing states. Also, controlling the Senate is now essential if you're a Democratic president, so she needs Allred to win as well. So I personally don't think it's a bad plan, as I'm not sure how many more voters are going to be moved by one more rally in a Wisconsin suburb anyway, and it'll generate a lot of headlines, memes, and clickbait. And I'm sure Ted Cruz is very, very sad today, which is always a good thing for humanity.
The buzz she's likely to generate from a high-profile concert with Beyonce is likely to outshine any good she'd be able to do with a single missed rally in Allentown or Green Bay.
Why is this being talked about as just a Texas event? (To the extent it’s being portrayed as a possibly-questionable choice.) Jeez, I presume it’s being broadcast or streamed to interested viewers in other states as well!
EDIT: But I do hear there’s some baseball game happening at the same time... /S
Exactly. I like Mark’s framing of this driving way more eyeballs and coverage nationally than any boilerplate rally like the ones she’s already been doing plenty of
I hope the outcome is different this time. No Davey Lopes, but this Dodgers team looks superior to the Yankees in defense and baserunning. We shall see.
The rally will be available on YouTube. I am watching the Dodger game live and can see the rally afterwards. Last night I saw the Atlanta rally with Kamala, Barack, Bruce and others. I love listening to the former president but I might have enjoyed Sen. Warnock's speech the best. Bruce did three songs solo with acoustic guitar and harmonica.
Since it was announced I’ve seen a few theories. That Beyoncé was going to show up (which turned out to be true), that it’s all for Allred (I’m sure it helps him but don’t think that’s the motivating factor), that W is going to end up endorsing her (highly unlikely), and that it can be used to highlight the draconian abortion laws in TX. I mean there’s also the theory that it’s a Hail Mary cause she’s so far behind in other states or that she can win it, both of which I’m skeptical of, but it is the state that has had the most horror stories post Dobbs so I would expect she goes into that even more heavily than normal.
As a Floridian, I'll take those numbers any day; it's a Republican poll by a Republican group that still has Scott only up 5(not saying Murcasel-Powell is going to win; but this year the Democratic party is fighting; as opposed to 2022)
Agreed; from being here on the ground, win or lose the state\county DECs are organized and fighting(I am waiting for post election data of our 67 counties to do a deeper dive but I am encouraged at the statewide efforts); and I'm especially curious as to the Anna Paulina Luna race and it's overall demographic analysis
WI daily update: over 1M cast. Turnout statewide at 30.5% of 2020. WOW counties lead everything with 43%, Dane's at 37%, Milwaukee around 30%, Fox cities 33%. Other high-performing counties (mid-30s) include Kenosha, Racine, La Crosse. Rural counties and smaller Republican cities do trail significantly (for example Fond du Lac is at just 21% of 2020, and a lot of rural counties in the teens).
Wow! That’s a huge jump; yesterday’s count was just shy of 600k. Any chance you could offer an analysis of what this means? With regards to the state of the race...
Some good signs, some bad. Republican diehards are clearly voting early. So are highly educated voters. No rural surge for Rs in the early vote (but that's not necessarily where you'd expect it). No big Black turnout surge in Milwaukee in the early vote (ditto).
Overall? WI turnout is always an absolute beast. It won't be that different this year. Persuasion is likely to matter more than turnout there. I'd rather be Harris, but it's way too early to know anything for sure.
Because there's no partisan breakdown and we're going just off of turnout based on the county's partisan lean, I'm even more reluctant than I normally am to put much value in the numbers, other than the middling turnout in Milwaukee. Unlike places like GA or NC where democrats will be in the teens in certain counties, they haven't fully bottomed out in a place like WI. Biden didn't get under 25% in any WI county and was under 30 in only 4. And I don't know how much anti-early vote bias still exists in the GOP, but whatever exists is probably greater in Wisconsin than the median state.
All of which is to say I look at the WOW counties, red but 2/3 of it are bluing counties and I don't know if Trump is winning in the early vote in Ozaukee and he's probably winning in the early vote in Waukesha but it wouldn't surprise me if its a relatively minor lead.
Based on yesterday’s numbers, Tom Bonier has Wisconsin’s "modeled party" split as:
– Democrats: 36.3%
– Republicans: 21.9%
– Independents: 41.8%
That’s a huge chunk of Independents! And the comparisons to 2020 and 2022 are especially dramatic. Here are Bonier’s modeled party splits for those elections:
FWIW, and TargetEarly updates slower than ArticStones, modeled party EV:
Area: 2024, 2020 ED-12, 2020 Final
National: D+4.6%, D+11.5%, D+7.0
BG States: D+5.5%, D+6.1%, D+1.7%
-----------------------
WI: D+14.4%, R+7.3%, R+9.6%
MI: D+14.5%, D+2.4%, D+1.9%
---------------
GA: R+3.7%, R+2.0%, R+4.6%
AZ: R+5.5%, R+0.1%, R+8.7%
-------------
PA: D+30.9%, D+38.3%, D+31.1%
NC: R+1.1%, D+8.0%, D+0.9%
NV: R+4.6%, D+6.4%, D+2.9%
D's running ahead of 2020 at this point AND the final #s in WI & MI. Ahead of finals but behind this point in GA & AZ. And behind both in PA, NC, and NV. Though within 0.2% in the latter two.
Again, they are running a tad behind some of the latest updates.
It is good to see coverage here of the Public Policy Institute of California ( ppic.org ) poll on the statewide propositions. The poll also covered the presidential and senatorial races in CA. There are no real surprises here. Kamala Harris leads DJT 59% to 33%. The only question is whether she matches Joe Biden's 63.5% of the vote in 2020. She would be the first CADEM POTUS, so it would be nice if she exceeds his total, but doesn't really matter.
In what might be the least interesting open seat race for Senator in the country Adam Schiff leads Steve Garvey by 63% to 37%. They don't show any undecideds, but both are well-known. The Dodgers are in the World Series and might win it, but ex-Dodger Garvey has no chance to join the US House of Lords (and Ladies).
The ballot props are about where I would expect them to be. I am pleased that Prop 3 (Marriage Equality) is way ahead with 67% support, but it is not the most popular proposition. Prop 36, which will increase penalties on various crimes, is at 73% Yes (with 67% of Dems and 86% of Repubs). I am having '80s flashbacks with how CA is going all-in on being "tough on crime". It is another sign that our voters are unhappy with the quality of life in the Golden State. Crime is also the only issue that the CAGOP has in their favor.
Yeah, George Gascon looks to share the same fate as Boudin. Actually Gascon is lucky; he gets to serve a full term because the people who were trying to recall him were incompetent in the signature gathering process. It is a major undertaking to get enough sigs in a county of 10 million people.
Then you would give a Republican prosecutor CV material to run for higher office. And yes, I know he is now allegedly independent, but he recently ran for AG as a Republican, and most politicians don't change stripes.
Then the appropriate time to address the issue was last spring. The LA Democratic party could have selected another democratic candidate to run in the open primary. A vote against Gascon at this point is effectively saying we are buying into all the fox news bullshit on crime and would prefer a Republican.
It's also being used against every Democrat in every swing CD, so we had better hope it doesn't work.
The proposition result that disturbs me the most is Prop 6. Do a majority of Californians really want slavery-like practices in prisons? And they claim California is a liberal state...
Yeah, I thought that CA was a free state rather than a slave state. This year the voters are in a punitive mood in policy towards crime, and incarceration as well apparently. I haven't really seen much of a campaign for or against Prop 6.
Next time they should make criminal justice reform more piecemeal and not go easy on the antisocials who see it as an opportunity to take their behavior to 11.
They found 48-47 Harris last month and 49-46 Trump in July. So a bad poll in isolation, but from a pollster that's found relatively bad results for Dems this year.
And it's again something like R+2 by party ID (they weight to obtain R+2, as previously discussed), with an R+3 GCB.
Takeaway from this + Siena + WSJ + CNBC, all of which look bad this week but all of which had exactly the same results in late August around the DNC - the race has not changed.
Was discussing this at a family gathering the other day, and a remarkably popular opinion was that losing Rather, Jennings, and Brokaw all at once was a major contributing factor. While they leaned conservative in a Gerald Ford-esque manner, they were fully tied to reality and weren't actively seeking to misinform the public (say what you will about them buying into Cheney's warmongering). They weren't Cronkites, but they were trusted faces for decades that kept tens of millions of conservatives tied to reality. Sure, Fox was growing in popularity and media was becoming less concentrated, but nobody the Big Three have tried out in the past two decades holds a candle to them, leaving no reason for conservatives not to wander to Fox or even more propagandized outlets if they kept watching news at all.
It didn’t help that a mainstay like Charlie Gibson didn’t stay on long after Jennings died and Brian Williams set his career on fire, making the chasm even worse
Indeed. Probably the more fundamental problem is that the anchors have transitioned to mere script-readers. While there was movement towards that by the early 2000s, they were clearly still using their brains and had some degree of independence. Now...not so much, with employers almost single-mindedly focused on not losing viewers, which not coincidently results in a lower-quality product and a loss of viewers.
The decline of TV news viewers is shared by broadcast and cable and looks genuinely apocalyptic. Depending on the channel, something like 80-90% of viewers are 65+. I honestly don’t know where the industry goes in the next decade
Scott, I couldn’t agree more! But defeating Donald Trump and as many MAGA candidates as possible on November 5th is the easy part. It will require a long-term effort to deal with the key core causes of our predicament. Here are some of them:
– The demise of American public education. (Diverting funds to private schools; the rise of charter schools; the downgrading of civics, history, critical thinking and the ability to spot misinformation/disinformation/propaganda .)
– Concentration of media ownership
– Infotainment replacing news media (Clicks and views becoming the reigning currency.)
– The rise of "news media" that create propaganda bubbles rather than reporting news.
– Algorithm-based social media (again: clicks and views prioritized)
– The Citizens United decision.
– Dark money capture of our courts and justice system.
– Leonard Leo’s present attempts to infiltrate and change American culture
– Rise of Christian Dominionism ("Seven Mountains" etc.)
Harris has likely banked more votes than Trump so far, given Democrats’ higher propensity to vote early or by mail, according to the poll. The poll was fielded October 20-23, after early and absentee voting was well underway across the country, and found the 20% of likely voters who say they have already cast their ballots break 61% Harris to 36% Trump, while those who say they haven’t yet voted break in Trump’s favor, 50% to 44%.
EARLY VOTE – KEY STATES
(UPDATE 1pm: MI, WI, PA updated) More than 34.3 million people have already voted. Over 15.9 million Mail Ballots have been returned, while more than 18.4 million people have voted Early In-Person. Some states are adding votes at a very rapid pace, with Georgia soon approaching 50% of its 2020 turnout!
Here are the vote totals so far, plus the 2024 Early Vote as a percentage of the Total 2020 Vote, for eight swing states:
GA 47.2% 2,368,812
NC 41.4% 2,296,511*
AZ 30.2% 1,032,284
MI 25.5% 1,424,592<
FL 29.9% 3,332,925*
NV 29% 408,835
WI 21.6% 715,395<
PA 18.4% 1,281,847<
(Vote totals and percentages are from Prof. Michael McDonald’s Election Project, which in turn are based on official reports from the various Secretaries of State. When I update, I’ll change my time-stamp.)
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/
Other key states, three included because of vital Senate races:
MT 36% 220,131
TX 29.8% 3,381,068
VA 28.2% 1,276,099
OH 21.3% 1,270,308
(Apologies for this not appearing as a well-ordered table. If anyone knows how to do that in an ordinary comment, please let me know.)
Georgia has been relatively slow the last couple of days. We have to see how this weekend goes.
NC, the downside I mentioned, the lackluster turnout in city centers, the coast with new R leaning voters are showing up. The further deterioration of the eastern plains is still unknown, as most D voted are Black Democrats at this time. The upside also shows with Triangle showing further bluing, and Asheville circle hits its fair share now.
The current R lead is mostly an artifact of rural piedmont voting early. Not sure this will last into the final electorate. So don’t worry too much about that top number.
Overall I still think GA has way more upside than North Carolina.
I do know there’s a massive GOTV effort in North Carolina. This morning I chatted with a friend who went to NC specifically to canvass for several weeks! I know Mecklenburg and Buncombe counties (with Asheville) are high priorities.
Georgia might be "slowing down" a tad but, as a percentage of its 2020 count, the state has the highest turnout in the nation.
“Slowing down” is relative to the super charged first several days.
In the past the every last day of early voting would be super busy. My guess is we may see a busy last week. The super voters will be nearly all voted. And we will see how the lower intensity voters will do.
About 100,000 votes to go until Georgia reaches 50% of its total 2020 vote count.
Edit: 5700 votes to go.
I can attest that my polling station (Apex Town Hall, inner suburbs) has been jam-packed. No clue about the city of Raleigh proper, though.
It's hard (in my experience) to get reliable local insight in North Cakalaky.
The NYTimes/Sienna poll has Harris ahead among those the 9 percent who already voted 59-40. If this is vaguely true, could someone more knowledgeable than me interpret its effect on the early vote in swing states?
As the OP wrote, 32.6 million people have already voted. That's going to be significantly more than 9% of the electorate. Considering that the poll is obviously wrong about that, I'm not inclined to trust it about anything else.
Yeah that’s more like 20% of the likely electorate, or thereabouts
Problem is, they didn't list "already voted" as an option. Respondents had to volunteer it. Not clear that everyone who already voted did that rather than just going with "almost certain".
CNN's poll said 20% of likely voters already voted, and they broke 61-36 for Harris.
I'm extremely wary of connecting polling to early election vote data for a million reasons, but as an exercise, could that mean some of those early Rs are super motivated anti-Trump R voters? Eh, we'll know more post-election.
If 32.6 million is only 9% of the total electorate, then that would mean a projected electorate of over 362.2 million voters. That's more voters than there are total residents of the 50 states + District of Columbia.
32.6 million being 16 2/3% (i.e., one-sixth) of the total electorate would be a little over 195.2 million voters, which is close to what I would guesstimate is the national turnout ceiling (around 195 million voters).
In a new survey from polling firm Leger, 64 per cent of Canadian respondents said if they could cast a ballot, they’d put their support behind vice-president Harris while 21 per cent would support former president Donald Trump. Fifteen per cent weren't sure what they would do.
https://www.rmoutlook.com/national-news/in-the-news-today-most-canadians-would-back-harris-in-us-poll-9708997
No surprise.
New @CookPolitical: Dems poised to gain ground in New York's House races overall, but #NY17 Rep. Mike Lawler (R) moves from Toss Up to Lean R
Wasn’t Mondaire Jones always considered a rather weak candidate, and Lawler a strong one?
Yes as to the former. A little bit as to the latter.
Yeah, my impression is that a long series of questionable decisions by Jones didn’t exactly endear him to people who could and should have been his political allies.
He also didn't get the WFP line, so he'll lose a few votes to the right-wing plant the ill-informed party voters nominated. I think Jones might squeak it out, but another candidate might be running away with it in this Biden+10 district.
He's bad at politics; he should try a different life course(generic D would win that seat, if the other polls in California and New York are on target); I might add that this election may allow Lawler to become entrenched
Lawler seems like he may want to run statewide at some point but, yeah, he’s gonna be hard to beat in 26/28
Dunno, I think a good Democratic candidate could still have a chance to beat him if Jones doesn't, and we can't assume midterms will go Republican even if a Democrat is in the White House.
I think it turns out that it would have been better if Whitmer's sister had gotten the mom, despite the fact that she was just a school board member.
Yeah, i think Lawler talks bipartisan well, although he's actually pretty extreme.
Terrific that The Downballot is doing an event with Aaron Rupar! But the notification states: "Note that you’ll need the Substack app to participate."
I use my MacBook for all online activity, never my cell phone (besides, no coverage where we live). Any chance of being able to access this event through the Firefox browser on my Mac? Or via Zoom?
Unfortunately, no. :( Substack is promoting these Dialogues in part to promote its app. It's possible there will be a recording made, though. I'll find out!
Great, thanks! Limiting my online activity to my laptop & browser, I am increasingly made to feel like a luddite. ;)
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/10/24/2024-elections-live-coverage-updates-analysis/harris-trump-fundraising-campaign-finance-reports-00185469
Harris has raised almost $100 million since the beginning of October vs. $16 million for Trump. This doesn't include outside groups of course!
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/encouraged-by-early-voting-data-mcconnell-linked-group-to-drop-6-2-million-to-help-brown
Steve Daines to campaign with Sam Brown because Republicans believe Latinos in NV have swung right in light of the early vote demographics. DB posted above the amount that Republicans are dumping: 6 million
I don't follow the logic here. Is Steve Daines uniquely popular with Latinos?
It's shooting craps(pardon the pun)
He is going to NV because he thinks it is now in play, hence the large ad buy, because they believe Latinos in Nevada are swinging right.
I wasn't trying to say Daines is the one appealing to Latinos lol
I mean, I get that.
It just seems like Daines is a weird choice to campaign with him. He's the head of the NRSC, but I'm also not aware of him being affiliated with Nevada in any way, or associated with groups like Latinos, or anything all that special as a speaker or campaigner.
NYT-Siena national is tied, as it has been all cycle with the exception of one Harris +3 from early October. Interestingly, Nate Cohn says it's not inconceivable that Harris could find herself on the right end - for once - of an EC/PV split. There are indications that she's held up well vs. Biden 2020 in the states where Ds did well in the midterms, and lost ground where we did badly in the midterms (FL, CA, etc.).
Crosstabs look sort of normal, if a bit too friendly to Harris among seniors and a bit too friendly to Trump among young voters. Hispanic sample a bit too R (just Harris +10). Party ID is R+, which again I'm skeptical about. GCB tied.
Given that NYT-Siena national polls have been to the right of the averages this cycle by a couple points, I guess I'll take it...?
EC/PV vote split on Harris's behalf would be sweet revenge after a quarter century of disingenuous civics lessons from Electoral College defenders on the right. Given my suspicion that California, Texas, Florida, and New York all swing rightward this year, the EC/PV split for Harris isn't particularly far-fetched, but it would require a combination of at least four battleground states (which were all at least 2 points to the right of the national average in 2020) to move an average of 3 points leftward than the rest of the country in 2024, which seems like a stretch.
PA, MI, WI would do it. They sure did in the midterms. And that's probably Harris' easiest path.
Actually, that only brings Harris to 269. She also needs NE-02, Nebraska’s "Blue Dot", although her victory there is more or less a certainty.
However, to guard against the risk of disloyal electors, she needs to win more states, placing her well beyond what I call MoS ("Margin of Steal"). It’s worth remembering that one of Trump’s false electors from 2016 *still* sits on Wisconsin’s Election Board!
The blue dot is looking pretty solid
I think FL definitely moves right relative to 2020. It's drawn loads of right-wing retirees and Dems got vaporized in 2022.
NY, probably a few points right in the NYC area given how badly Dems did in 2022.
CA was one of the few states to move right from 2016 to 2020, possibly because most of the nationwide leftward movement was among whites and CA's white population is both relatively small and relatively liberal. I wouldn't read anything into the 2022 results, as there was literally no state-level Dem campaign. It maybe moves another point or two to the right.
TX should not move right, at least relative to the nation. Its demographic creep heavily favors Dems and it's moved consistently to the left this century.
Allred’s strong showing so far is provisional evidence. Stronger evidence is the fact that I keep getting fundraising requests from Ted Cruz!
Frankly, I am surprised more Floridians aren’t more concerned about losing their Social Security under a Trump regime and MAGA-controlled Congress.
It’s been the case for years that voters simply don’t believe you when you tell them how extreme the GOP really is
It's a fundamental flaw of human psychology that, even with ample evidence, people refuse to believe that bad things can happen until they do. The same way most people didn't believe that Roe v. Wade would be overturned until it was.
Or at least from Rick Scott! Ultimately though, I think most of the greedy geezers in Florida take comfort in the idea that when the Republicans they vote for promise to cut Social Security and Medicare, they're talking about their children's and grandchildren's SS and Medicare, not their own.
You have pretty much summed up my state
That’s definitely it
Are there any states you think will swing left this year?
Texas; marginally
Yeah, I expect that as well. I’m feeling pretty optimistic though so I’m expecting most states that are already trending blue to continue to do so, and for reddening to at least decrease its rate, if not reverse, in most other states as well. There will be some exceptions of course. In states that one candidate is winning by 25-30+ points I’d be hesitant to attribute that to an actual shift vs just complacency, especially if there are no competitive down ballot races.
Agreed; Trump was not very impressive in Texas in the last 2 cycles and Cruz has never been popular; look at past elections where either Cornyn or Abbott on the ballot as comparison(not a total apples to apples comparison I know)
Not many.....basically because I think the primary demographic of voter expected to flip (the Nikki Haley Republican) already flipped in 2020 and there are vanishingly few prospects to add to that total.
I think Virginia and maybe Maryland have a good chance given that they're the heart of the Beltway and the regional implications of Trump's federal worker purge could squeeze out a few Trump 2020 holdouts fearful for their future.
Maybe a few more Yankee Republicans can flip in Upper New England (NH, ME, and CT seem like possibilities).
I'm not specifically predicting Georgia will improve from 2020 but it would be one of the top contenders because of demographics.
Outside of that, maybe Washington state and Alaska, along with one outlier....
Kansas. The demographics of suburban Kansas City seem uniquely tailored for flipping thousands more of their moderate Republican faction. Sharice Davids' performance two years ago shows that there's considerable room for Democratic growth even compared to 2020.
I haven't officially predicted this, but it wouldn't surprise me if Kansas puts up a weaker margin for Trump than Iowa, Ohio, or Florida this year.
Fair, obviously I’m more optimistic but I can agree with many of your points. For ME do you see any impact to ME-02 and what do you think about Golden’s chances?
Two other states I’m interested in your opinion on. NE, I think the trends there are similar to KS. I don’t think Harris is going to make major inroads, but I do think it will trend a bit blue. The Osborne campaign being such a surprise makes it a very interesting state. From polling it appears to be specific to him, but for a generic, mainstream Republican to be in this competitive a race implies there is some hope there.
The other is SC. I commented on it the other day and am still putting in some numbers but the idea that growth is primarily being spurred by retirees moving to Myrtle Beach area is just not backed up by numbers. Yes, Horry county has been one of the three fastest growing counties since 2020. But the other two (Charleston and Greenville) essentially all cancel each other out. When you look at the rest of the growth though, it is in blue trending counties.
I wonder if SC will swing rightward, simply due to depressed Democratic turnout compared to 2020, which featured a Senate race that was incorrectly perceived to be competitive.
That’s a very interesting theory. I’ll look into how the increased turnout in SC in 2020 compared to other states both with and without competitive Senate seats. Thanks for the idea!
Good observation. Could very well be.
Intuitively I say no(SC still has a huge AA number and a solid minority of folks I call 'sane Republicans' who are repulsed by Trump and have consistently been in opposition)
Good points on Nebraska and South Carolina. I expect a smaller rightward shift in those states for the same reasons you cite...certainly less than the national average. Particularly if Omaha turns out as blue as polling shows, Nebraska could see a slight statewide improvement.
As for Maine, I think any improvement there will be confined to ME-01. I don't see much chance for improvement in ME-02 and it could be the end of the line for Golden. Not quite there yet on predictions for him though.
I think NC will shift left marginally, given the active campaign. Triangle could shift by up to 100k net votes, and Asheville by some 10k. If Charlotte and Triad and east NC can hold decent AA turnout.
Will have further losses from the coast, and probably some turnout impact from the rural west. So could see the deficit shrinks or flips.
But to be honest, my guesstimate has the avg case as a 0.5% loss, and a rosier case but still within reasonable range gets her lead in hundreds of votes. And winning 1pt would require some unreasonable assumption (something like 5-6pt higher AA turnout than 2020)
KS is def an interesting point
Your analysis is well thought-out and has a lot of logic behind it, but I want to push back on this a bit:
"I think the primary demographic of voter expected to flip (the Nikki Haley Republican) already flipped in 2020 and there are vanishingly few prospects to add to that total."
Fair enough that that's what you think, but the fact that a certain cohort of Trump voters died and the likelihood that younger, less white people who replaced them will probably be more liberal is a prospect to add to that total, isn't it?
I still think that most states will swing left this year, if by small margins. I could see CA, NY, and FL swinging right, along with some of the Deep South (AL, MS, LA, and AR). HI and NV probably won't budge, and maybe there might be one or two other states that don't swing left. But I think the rest of them will.
I'm going to quantify swing as more than a couple of points but here are my guesses as to states that could move to the left this cycle.
Alaska: it seems to be on a slow and steady path leftward.
California: Home state advantage, better fit for Harris v. Biden.
Colorado: Republicans have further to fall in Colorado Springs and Douglas County.
DC: 1/6.
Georgia: Least sure of this one but hopeful. general leftward trend.
Hawaii: Harris seems a better fit for the state.
Kansas: General leftward trend.
Maryland: 1/6, First black woman nominee, higher turnout due to senate race.
Michigan: Think she has a chance to outperform Biden but 10/7 complicates the picture here. General leftward trend.
Minnesota: Walz effect and general movement to the left since 2016.
Mississippi: Possible higher AA turnout for Harris, if the gender gap is large could scramble the picture.
Nebraska: General leftward trend.
Oregon: Harris probably a better fit for the state. leftward trend.
Pennsylvania: Gut feeling that the PA GOP is in a weak state and Harris has a chance to outperform Biden here.
South Carolina: Same as MS.
Texas: General leftward trend
Utah: 1/6 and Trump's antics.
Virginia: 1/6, general leftward trend.
Washington: Better fit for Harris west coast candidate.
I am beginning to think that CA could disappoint us this election. The PPIC polls on our ballot measures reported in today's Morning Digest are worrisome. The conservative props are trending yes, and some of the liberal props are trending no. In general the excitement in the air is absent.
Harris and Schiff will win easily. I've been hoping that at least five Republican House seats would go Dem (Gray and Salas in the Central Valley; Whitesides, Tran, and Rollins in SoCal), and that the most iffy Dem seat would stay Dem (Min, running for Porter's SoCal seat). I still think we'll win at least some of those races (say Gray, Whitesides, Min, and if the stars align, Tran). A gain of 1 to 3 House seats.
Colorado perhaps? Also states with formerly Republican metros that have maxed out rural margins. So Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.
OK is an interesting one, I haven’t really looked into it since it is so red. That’s goin to be tough to evaluate unless it is a significant shift, and in that case I suspect we’re seeing that occur pretty much everywhere.
If Harris can actually flip Oklahoma County though that would at least be a promising start.
Oklahoma County's the only contender to flip this cycle, but Biden also made inroads into Tulsa and other relatively urban counties. There's probably some space for Trump to gain in rurals he won 70%+, but after that, it's like squeezing water from rocks.
Not that it'll make a difference, but some interesting trends nonetheless.
Maybe we can turn this into a type of post election group discussion here with the forthcoming data; just a thought
Texas is uppermost in my mind for this, but maybe NC and Georgia, too.
I doubt Texas would swing to the right. The others might or might not.
The Times also noted that Harris “still has room to grow” because 15 percent of voters said they were not fully decided on who to vote for. The poll found Harris has a 10-point lead among undecided voters with 42 percent of support compared to Trump’s 32 percent. When the poll was taken two weeks ago, The Times noted that Trump had a 1-point edge among undecided voters
That coheres with Emerson’s polling showing late deciders breaking for Harris.
That's weird, because undecided voters by definition support neither candidate.
I don't have a NYT membership so I didn't read the article, but when he says a PV/EC split what exactly is he saying? Does he think Trump could win the popular vote and lose the EC or is he saying that Trump could do appreciably better in the PV but do just as bad, if not worse, in the EC?
The former is an outcome that I think has almost no chance of happening. Because it probably requires Trump to do at least 3 points better in each of TX, NY and CA (and FL, but that one is likely) and I don't think that can happen without swing states being affected. The latter I think is very plausible. There were a total of 12 Gubernatorial and Senate races across the swing states and every single state had an R-Favorable polling error of at least 2 points. The only 2 races that didn't were the NV and GA-GOV races and in those states the senate races had that (the regular election in GA had the polling error, but the runoff was actually a point too D). If we get that level of polling error again across those states, she'll win every swing state except maybe GA and if he wins that one it'll be by margins similar to the one Biden had in 2020. That's an outcome that seems plausible to me.
He thinks Trump could, theoretically, win the PV and lose the EC. He says it's quite unlikely but not impossible.
I suppose anything is possible, but I'd put that outcome as just one step below so unlikely as to not be worth mentioning. I'd say Kamala's chance of winning TX and Trump's chances of winning MN (which I'd say are probabilistically relatively similar) are much more likely than the PV/EC split.
I'm not so sure. Unlikely but not beyond the realm of the possible. And more likely than your TX/MN example.
Biden's margin in the PV (4.5) is not that far off his deficit in TX (5.8) and Texas moved more left than the country did from 2016 to 2020. And in Minnesota, if the bottom completely falls out for Kamala it would probably be the first non-swing state to go for Trump. Both of these results make sense because it would fit with historical election results. Trump doing ~ 5 points better nationally but it being so concentrated or certain states being so impervious to it would be I think pretty ahistoric.
He suggested Trump winning the popular vote but losing the EC. He said it was unlikely
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/us/elections/polls-president.html?unlocked_article_code=1.U04.a9ao.0apwvXDzwh-q&smid=url-share
Gifted link from my free library account
The data point that I find most interesting is a 59-40 advantage for Harris among those who have already voted.
Along with Marist (3 swing states) and Emerson, that’s now three polls suggesting a number ranging from mid 50s to low 60s with the “already” crowd
True - and one thing that struck me was that 9% already-voted, per NYT-Siena, is too small. It's more like 20% of the electorate that's already voted. Lag of the poll is canceled out by the fact that many votes are in the mail. It's possible, though, that it's too small because it wasn't listed as an option, responders had to volunteer it. So I can't say for sure.
Tom Bonier has a Twitter thread on the Marist poll. He focuses on AZ and thinks this is a very good sign for Harris. In 2020, he claims that the Republicans who voted early were more likely to have voted for Biden. The Marist data would provide some evidence for this being the case again.
https://x.com/tbonier/status/1849618799118451127
For those of us who don’t frequent X (for obvious reason) is there a way to get the rest of that thread?
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1849618799118451127.html
Thank you!
Well he also claimed in 2016 up to 1/4 of VBM registered Rs were voting for Hillary.
Add CNN to that crowd.
Has anyone tried to add up what the 'expected' split of the current early vote would be based on party splits, or on geographic/demographic splits for states that don't have party registration? I think Harris would be ahead because of mail votes, but I'd think the margin would be less than 19 points.
Does anyone know how that looked in 2020? Im assuming it was even more Dem friendly due to Dems going nuts over mail voting and GOPers avoiding it.
If they haven’t updated their weight scheme, they would weight the 18-29 year olds to 12% of the LV, like it previous national polls.
This never happened before, yet here we are.
What's the usually percentage of voters from this cohort in the general electorate?
Census voting population study says they hover around 17-19%
I’ve heard whispers of Trump leading Harris in a Latino-heavy assembly district in California that Biden previously won
What do "whispers" mean, and why should we pay attention to them?
It would have to be somewhere in the Central Valley, if such an AD exists. Tr*mp ain't happening in my Latino-heavy assembly district (AD-43, Northeast SFV, L. A. Co.)
Heather Cox Richardson has an insigtful review of the state and recent history of today’s MAGA-Republican Party. Her "Letters from an American" is always worth a read. I choose to subscribe but her excellent newsletter is free.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-24-2024
Friday's PA Mail-In Ballot Update is in.
39,369 new requests, R+5,142. Overall request advantage now down to D+504,600
76,679 ballot returns, D+6,102. Overall ballot advantage now D+372,194
18k short of the (once) popular firewall, 78k below my firewall
Total Requests:
D - 1,121,219 (56.48%)
R - 616,619 (31.06%)
O - 247,491 (12.47%)
Total - 1,985,329
Total Returns:
D - 763,072 (68.06% return rate)
R - 390,878 (63.39%)
O - 130,792 (52.85%)
Total - 1,284,742
Next Tuesday is the last day to request a mail ballot.
5pm Eastern Tuesday, correct.
GOP netted almost 17k in requests while Dems netted 77.9k in returns this week. Another weekend of "in-person" voting & satellite drop-off locations starts tomorrow morning. 2 million requests should be hit tomorrow. I'm curious as to how high returns will get. Monday's update will be huge, especially in the big counties.
What is your basis for expecting huge returns form the big counties on Monday? The weekend satellite locations or past performance or both?
It's mostly the former. Plus, there are rumors of "Souls to the Polls" in Pittsburgh & Philadelphia on Sunday.
Just because they are doing an event they are calling Souls to the Polls doesn't mean many people will show up. This is a long-standing organic institutional event held by black churches in Georgia and North Carolina. Trying to forcibly replicate it in other states is unlikely to yield a significant number of votes. Even in Georgia, where this is biggest, they only get ~20k black voters on Sunday. Most of the voters in Georgia last Sunday were white.
I get that & here in PA it's going to be a pain to run a bunch of requests but I'm just stating things I've heard other places.
Are the firewall targets for PA based on historic Election Day voting numbers? If so, wouldn’t they be over estimating what is most likely needed considering the increase we’re seeing in Republican early voting? (I will acknowledge it’s possible that these are truly “new” Republican voters, but that seems very unlikely and there have been polls showing that a significant amount of them voted on Election Day in 2020).
I’m trying to reconcile how Dems can be on target for the firewall, and potentially even exceed it considering the change in EV patterns, if they still need to have enough votes banked in to withstand the historic Republican advantage on ED.
I believe so. To your point, then, we may already be ahead of pace if the GOP is cannibalizing their ED vote. Who knows.
This is part of why I find the idea that early vote analysis is augury persuasive lol
Honestly, I think the firewall is pretty useless because this is the first "normal" election in which no-excuse mail-in voting is a thing in PA. It's great that Democrats are going to have sizable amount of votes banked going into Election Day but we don't know really know what that means.
It's going to help focus the Democratic GOTV; but tea leaves reading may be impossible
Tom Bonier posted yesterday on Twitter that 43% of Republican early voters voted on election day in 2020.
https://x.com/tbonier/status/1849433757264003249
USPS apparently delivered my ballot in Philadelphia on Wednesday, but my election ballot status still says pending/not received. Perhaps an indicator that there's a backlog of unprocessed ballots? Who knows. I sent an email asking for clarification but wouldn't be surprised if I don't receive a reply soon.
PA dem firewall projection for election day: 416K
In my canvassing this cycle and in 2022 I’ve been struck by the fact that I was getting a handful of Registered Republicans who (1) were on my canvass list of about 45 doors and (2) expressed a preference for Shapiro (2022) and Harris (2024). All were older and seemed to be college educated - for example mentioning that they were teachers or referring to college friends.
I'm willing to bet that that's why the folks were on your canvassing lists; micro-targeting techniques found that they were potentially 'gettable' voters
I think Kamala's visit to Texas today (11 days before the election) is likely to get mentioned a lot in post-election commentary, no matter the election outcome. If she loses, this will be on the list of reasons, and one of the many ways her campaign is compared to Hillary's. If she wins, it may be held up as part of an unconventional strategy to build a winning coalition of young and Black voters in general, helping in the swing states. Also, controlling the Senate is now essential if you're a Democratic president, so she needs Allred to win as well. So I personally don't think it's a bad plan, as I'm not sure how many more voters are going to be moved by one more rally in a Wisconsin suburb anyway, and it'll generate a lot of headlines, memes, and clickbait. And I'm sure Ted Cruz is very, very sad today, which is always a good thing for humanity.
One stop in Houston is not going to make or break anything. Can't compare it to Clinton who didn't campaign in Wisconsin.
And Trump is in Austin today. So I would think each side thinks the state is not locked away.
The buzz she's likely to generate from a high-profile concert with Beyonce is likely to outshine any good she'd be able to do with a single missed rally in Allentown or Green Bay.
Plus lots of free media nationally from sources not normally political
But what about compared to a missed rally in Williamsport PA, which I would have attended? She is really missing an opportunity there!
Guaranteed she's going to be in PA at least 2 more times in the next week
Why is this being talked about as just a Texas event? (To the extent it’s being portrayed as a possibly-questionable choice.) Jeez, I presume it’s being broadcast or streamed to interested viewers in other states as well!
EDIT: But I do hear there’s some baseball game happening at the same time... /S
Exactly. I like Mark’s framing of this driving way more eyeballs and coverage nationally than any boilerplate rally like the ones she’s already been doing plenty of
You mean the most important game since I was a new California resident in 1981./s
To paraphrase a comment made about another sport:
"The World Series is not a matter of life and death. It’s far more important than that."
I hope the outcome is different this time. No Davey Lopes, but this Dodgers team looks superior to the Yankees in defense and baserunning. We shall see.
Imo this Series comes down to relief pitching(whichever pen is the most rested\ready wins)
Lopes was one of my favorite players, especially after he went to the A's and then the Cubs. One of the best players to come out of Rhode Island.
Her Instagram always does a live broadcast of the rallies
I’m not a registered Instagram user. Anywhere else?
I'm sure they'll have a link @kamala Harris. Com
You Tube. There is a Kamala Harris channel and also a Tim Walz one.
The rally will be available on YouTube. I am watching the Dodger game live and can see the rally afterwards. Last night I saw the Atlanta rally with Kamala, Barack, Bruce and others. I love listening to the former president but I might have enjoyed Sen. Warnock's speech the best. Bruce did three songs solo with acoustic guitar and harmonica.
Since it was announced I’ve seen a few theories. That Beyoncé was going to show up (which turned out to be true), that it’s all for Allred (I’m sure it helps him but don’t think that’s the motivating factor), that W is going to end up endorsing her (highly unlikely), and that it can be used to highlight the draconian abortion laws in TX. I mean there’s also the theory that it’s a Hail Mary cause she’s so far behind in other states or that she can win it, both of which I’m skeptical of, but it is the state that has had the most horror stories post Dobbs so I would expect she goes into that even more heavily than normal.
What I’ve read is that it’s there to focus primarily on what a GOP abortion ban actually entails; somebody on Threads said Kate Cox might speak
Allred's her likeliest 50th vote in the senate. He might not be the singular motivating factor, but he's at least on par with any other factor.
I love the idea that if only she had spent one more day in one of the other 7 swing states, she would have won.
There is a competitive Senate race in Texas. Its worth spending a night down th
She’s doing Brene Brown’s podcast in Houston. That reaches lots of listeners outside Texas.
A couple of polls out today show Trump with a 5-6 point lead in Florida.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/20241025_FL_Hunt.pdf
https://www.flchamber.com/new-florida-chamber-statewide-poll-shows-donald-trump-rick-scott-closing-the-2024-general-election-campaign-in-florida-leading-their-democratic-opponents-while-governor-ron-desantis-remains-popular/
Scott up 51-46 in the latter poll.
I think a 6 point lead is well within my expectations for Florida
As a Floridian, I'll take those numbers any day; it's a Republican poll by a Republican group that still has Scott only up 5(not saying Murcasel-Powell is going to win; but this year the Democratic party is fighting; as opposed to 2022)
Yea. I think it might be a tinge rosier than reality for Democrats though.
At least this poll doesn’t suggest a turnout collapse in late EV / Election Day, which has huge impacts on down ballot races.
Agreed; from being here on the ground, win or lose the state\county DECs are organized and fighting(I am waiting for post election data of our 67 counties to do a deeper dive but I am encouraged at the statewide efforts); and I'm especially curious as to the Anna Paulina Luna race and it's overall demographic analysis
Pollster is #251 on 538 rankings; with 1star, but honestly I can't argue against their numbers here because imo they are quite plausible
WI daily update: over 1M cast. Turnout statewide at 30.5% of 2020. WOW counties lead everything with 43%, Dane's at 37%, Milwaukee around 30%, Fox cities 33%. Other high-performing counties (mid-30s) include Kenosha, Racine, La Crosse. Rural counties and smaller Republican cities do trail significantly (for example Fond du Lac is at just 21% of 2020, and a lot of rural counties in the teens).
Wow! That’s a huge jump; yesterday’s count was just shy of 600k. Any chance you could offer an analysis of what this means? With regards to the state of the race...
Some good signs, some bad. Republican diehards are clearly voting early. So are highly educated voters. No rural surge for Rs in the early vote (but that's not necessarily where you'd expect it). No big Black turnout surge in Milwaukee in the early vote (ditto).
Overall? WI turnout is always an absolute beast. It won't be that different this year. Persuasion is likely to matter more than turnout there. I'd rather be Harris, but it's way too early to know anything for sure.
You wrote: "I'd rather be Harris".
I must look dumb, but can you explain why? Is it just the low rural rate? The lack of a Black surge seems bad.
Because there's no partisan breakdown and we're going just off of turnout based on the county's partisan lean, I'm even more reluctant than I normally am to put much value in the numbers, other than the middling turnout in Milwaukee. Unlike places like GA or NC where democrats will be in the teens in certain counties, they haven't fully bottomed out in a place like WI. Biden didn't get under 25% in any WI county and was under 30 in only 4. And I don't know how much anti-early vote bias still exists in the GOP, but whatever exists is probably greater in Wisconsin than the median state.
All of which is to say I look at the WOW counties, red but 2/3 of it are bluing counties and I don't know if Trump is winning in the early vote in Ozaukee and he's probably winning in the early vote in Waukesha but it wouldn't surprise me if its a relatively minor lead.
Based on yesterday’s numbers, Tom Bonier has Wisconsin’s "modeled party" split as:
– Democrats: 36.3%
– Republicans: 21.9%
– Independents: 41.8%
That’s a huge chunk of Independents! And the comparisons to 2020 and 2022 are especially dramatic. Here are Bonier’s modeled party splits for those elections:
– 2020: D 35.6% / R 42.9% / I 21.4%
– 2022: D 37.3% / R 33.5% / I 29.2%
https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/g2024?calc_type=voteShare&count_prefix=current_eav_voted_count_&demo_filters=%5B%7B%22key%22%3A%22modeledParty%22%2C%22value%22%3A%22All%22%7D%5D&state=WI&view_type=state
Rs being well under 25% with the WOW counties having the highest turnout is... something that I never thought I would see.
Makes me skeptical of TE’s model in that case, tbh
FWIW, and TargetEarly updates slower than ArticStones, modeled party EV:
Area: 2024, 2020 ED-12, 2020 Final
National: D+4.6%, D+11.5%, D+7.0
BG States: D+5.5%, D+6.1%, D+1.7%
-----------------------
WI: D+14.4%, R+7.3%, R+9.6%
MI: D+14.5%, D+2.4%, D+1.9%
---------------
GA: R+3.7%, R+2.0%, R+4.6%
AZ: R+5.5%, R+0.1%, R+8.7%
-------------
PA: D+30.9%, D+38.3%, D+31.1%
NC: R+1.1%, D+8.0%, D+0.9%
NV: R+4.6%, D+6.4%, D+2.9%
D's running ahead of 2020 at this point AND the final #s in WI & MI. Ahead of finals but behind this point in GA & AZ. And behind both in PA, NC, and NV. Though within 0.2% in the latter two.
Again, they are running a tad behind some of the latest updates.
https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/g2024?count_prefix=final_eav_voted_count_&demo_filters=%5B%7B%22key%22%3A%22modeledParty%22%2C%22value%22%3A%22All%22%7D%5D&state=AZ&view_type=state
Got to say the modeled party is really trash
It is good to see coverage here of the Public Policy Institute of California ( ppic.org ) poll on the statewide propositions. The poll also covered the presidential and senatorial races in CA. There are no real surprises here. Kamala Harris leads DJT 59% to 33%. The only question is whether she matches Joe Biden's 63.5% of the vote in 2020. She would be the first CADEM POTUS, so it would be nice if she exceeds his total, but doesn't really matter.
In what might be the least interesting open seat race for Senator in the country Adam Schiff leads Steve Garvey by 63% to 37%. They don't show any undecideds, but both are well-known. The Dodgers are in the World Series and might win it, but ex-Dodger Garvey has no chance to join the US House of Lords (and Ladies).
The ballot props are about where I would expect them to be. I am pleased that Prop 3 (Marriage Equality) is way ahead with 67% support, but it is not the most popular proposition. Prop 36, which will increase penalties on various crimes, is at 73% Yes (with 67% of Dems and 86% of Repubs). I am having '80s flashbacks with how CA is going all-in on being "tough on crime". It is another sign that our voters are unhappy with the quality of life in the Golden State. Crime is also the only issue that the CAGOP has in their favor.
The booting of Boudin was not a fluke. Some major cities eased enforcement and retail theft syndicates and junkies took full advantage.
Yeah, George Gascon looks to share the same fate as Boudin. Actually Gascon is lucky; he gets to serve a full term because the people who were trying to recall him were incompetent in the signature gathering process. It is a major undertaking to get enough sigs in a county of 10 million people.
I’d vote against Gascon.
Then you would give a Republican prosecutor CV material to run for higher office. And yes, I know he is now allegedly independent, but he recently ran for AG as a Republican, and most politicians don't change stripes.
Gascon has done a horrible job.
Then the appropriate time to address the issue was last spring. The LA Democratic party could have selected another democratic candidate to run in the open primary. A vote against Gascon at this point is effectively saying we are buying into all the fox news bullshit on crime and would prefer a Republican.
It's also being used against every Democrat in every swing CD, so we had better hope it doesn't work.
Is this the 12th or 20th time you've said that?
There was reporting that there actually wasn't a major increase in shoplifting, and it was mostly a made-up story.
They were real and probably the most prominent in SF.
What were real? Shoplifting? Sure, but how do you know whether there was much more of it than usual?
I know someone who did regional security for Nordstrom and he saw spikes in organized theft that ended up being sold to fences to resell.
Right, there were lots of such reports, but they're anecdotal.
The proposition result that disturbs me the most is Prop 6. Do a majority of Californians really want slavery-like practices in prisons? And they claim California is a liberal state...
Yeah, I thought that CA was a free state rather than a slave state. This year the voters are in a punitive mood in policy towards crime, and incarceration as well apparently. I haven't really seen much of a campaign for or against Prop 6.
Isn't that one of the functions of prison? The 13th Amendment would not have passed if it also banned prison labor.
Why do you think slave labor is one of the functions of prison?
You lose rights as a convicted felon when in prison.
Not the point. Of course you do. That doesn't require slave labor that among other things undercuts free labor.
Yeah. If these polls accurately forecast the results for the propositions, Californians seem strikingly reactionary and downright mean on issues.
Next time they should make criminal justice reform more piecemeal and not go easy on the antisocials who see it as an opportunity to take their behavior to 11.
Not all the propositions are about criminal justice.
Final CNN national poll (I mean the election's tomorrow isn't it) has a 47-47 tie. Herd away pollsters.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/25/politics/cnn-poll-harris-trump/index.html
They found 48-47 Harris last month and 49-46 Trump in July. So a bad poll in isolation, but from a pollster that's found relatively bad results for Dems this year.
And it's again something like R+2 by party ID (they weight to obtain R+2, as previously discussed), with an R+3 GCB.
Takeaway from this + Siena + WSJ + CNBC, all of which look bad this week but all of which had exactly the same results in late August around the DNC - the race has not changed.
Might be more. R +3 in the generic and Biden at 36/64 approval.
Wow. With a 36/64 approval sample, I'm absolutely shocked that it's tied on the top line. That must be a really R-leaning group of independents.
The indies are tied with a slight Harris lead in the tabs.
Fair point. It must be a really Biden-disapproving group of independents. Shocking, in a good way, that Harris still leads with them.
They were one of her less rosy pollsters and also they have her up 1 with RVs fwiw.
JFC how did we get to this point? How is it even close? We may win on the 5th but this country is in so much trouble beyond that.
Lots of people are awful, irredeemable people.
And I live surrounded by them.
Was discussing this at a family gathering the other day, and a remarkably popular opinion was that losing Rather, Jennings, and Brokaw all at once was a major contributing factor. While they leaned conservative in a Gerald Ford-esque manner, they were fully tied to reality and weren't actively seeking to misinform the public (say what you will about them buying into Cheney's warmongering). They weren't Cronkites, but they were trusted faces for decades that kept tens of millions of conservatives tied to reality. Sure, Fox was growing in popularity and media was becoming less concentrated, but nobody the Big Three have tried out in the past two decades holds a candle to them, leaving no reason for conservatives not to wander to Fox or even more propagandized outlets if they kept watching news at all.
It didn’t help that a mainstay like Charlie Gibson didn’t stay on long after Jennings died and Brian Williams set his career on fire, making the chasm even worse
Indeed. Probably the more fundamental problem is that the anchors have transitioned to mere script-readers. While there was movement towards that by the early 2000s, they were clearly still using their brains and had some degree of independence. Now...not so much, with employers almost single-mindedly focused on not losing viewers, which not coincidently results in a lower-quality product and a loss of viewers.
The decline of TV news viewers is shared by broadcast and cable and looks genuinely apocalyptic. Depending on the channel, something like 80-90% of viewers are 65+. I honestly don’t know where the industry goes in the next decade
These are the same concerns the classical music industry has in the U.S.
Scott, I couldn’t agree more! But defeating Donald Trump and as many MAGA candidates as possible on November 5th is the easy part. It will require a long-term effort to deal with the key core causes of our predicament. Here are some of them:
– The demise of American public education. (Diverting funds to private schools; the rise of charter schools; the downgrading of civics, history, critical thinking and the ability to spot misinformation/disinformation/propaganda .)
– Concentration of media ownership
– Infotainment replacing news media (Clicks and views becoming the reigning currency.)
– The rise of "news media" that create propaganda bubbles rather than reporting news.
– Algorithm-based social media (again: clicks and views prioritized)
– The Citizens United decision.
– Dark money capture of our courts and justice system.
– Leonard Leo’s present attempts to infiltrate and change American culture
– Rise of Christian Dominionism ("Seven Mountains" etc.)
And that’s just for starters.
Apparently this poll also shows Harris leading by 25 points (61-36) among the 20% who already voted.
https://x.com/blankslate2017/status/1849855594091643354
From CNN's write up:
Harris has likely banked more votes than Trump so far, given Democrats’ higher propensity to vote early or by mail, according to the poll. The poll was fielded October 20-23, after early and absentee voting was well underway across the country, and found the 20% of likely voters who say they have already cast their ballots break 61% Harris to 36% Trump, while those who say they haven’t yet voted break in Trump’s favor, 50% to 44%.