As early voting winds down, here is an update on the big numbers related to early voting in states that are hosting competitive statewide races next week. Following is from SOS sites through November 1st.
The data at this level generally gives a sense of two metrics: voter enthusiasm and, with a closer look in certain states, partisan breakdown. I’ve added links after certain states to experts who know a lot more about those locales than I do and offer more detailed breakdowns of the data.
Nevada
Today, November 2nd, is the last day of early voting in Nevada. The state has both in-person early voting and absentee/mail-in and provides a partisan breakdown across both methods in most counties.
TOTAL VOTE |
% Total Cast |
IN-PERSON |
|
% Cast |
Absent/
MAIL-IN
|
|
% Cast |
226,310 |
41.3% |
Dem |
202,417 |
42.0% |
Dem |
23,893 |
36.5% |
211,113 |
38.6% |
Rep |
181,466 |
38.0% |
Rep |
29,647 |
45.3% |
110,219 |
20.1% |
Other |
98,353 |
20.0% |
Other |
11,866 |
18.1% |
547,642
|
100.0% |
Total |
482,236 |
|
Total |
65,406 |
|
Overall about 35.1% of “active voters” in Nevada have cast ballots. The percentage breakdowns in votes cast between R and D have stayed fairly steady. Clark County (Las Vegas) is by far the largest county and source of votes in the state (about 67% of the early vote so far). The early vote there breaks down as follows:
TOTAL VOTE |
% Total Cast |
IN-PERSON |
|
% Cast |
Absent/
MAIL-IN
|
|
% Cast |
165,476 |
44.8% |
Dem |
150,748 |
45.1% |
Dem |
14,728 |
42.4% |
127,919 |
34.7% |
Rep |
113,962 |
34.1% |
Rep |
13,957 |
40.1% |
75,495 |
20.5% |
Other |
69,398 |
20.8% |
Other |
6,097 |
17.5% |
368,890
|
100.0% |
Total |
334,108 |
|
Total |
34,782 |
|
Link to the venerable Jon Ralston and his early voting blog for much more.
Florida
Florida’s early voting period runs through tomorrow, November 3rd. The totals so far:
TOTAL VOTE |
IN-PERSON |
VOTE CAST
|
% TOTAL CAST
|
MAIL-IN
|
RETURNED |
% TOTAL RETURNED |
OUTSTANDING |
1,630,927 |
Dem |
785,162 |
41.2% |
Dem |
845,765 |
39.1% |
554,059 |
1,689,457 |
Rep |
777,765 |
40.8% |
Rep |
911,692 |
42.1% |
438,996 |
722,397 |
NPA* |
328,170 |
17.2% |
NPA |
394,227 |
18.2% |
319,002 |
26,815 |
Other |
14,581 |
0.8% |
Other |
12,234 |
0.6% |
9,264 |
4,069,596 |
|
1,905,678 |
|
|
2,163,918 |
|
1,321,321 |
* NPA=No Party Affiliation
Democrats maintain a small edge in the in-person vote. Republicans lead overall because of their stronger mail-in ballot performance; there is still a gap of about 115,000 outstanding Democratic mail-in ballots compared to outstanding Republican ballots. The NPA share maintains at about 18% of the total early vote.
For a lot more in-depth Florida analysis there is Poli Sci Professor Daniel Smith @electionsmith and Dem Political Advisor Steve Schale and his blog.
Arizona
Arizona’s early voting period also ends today, November 2nd. The SOS’s “dashboard” draws from different data sets to present their early voting information. The site aggregates everything into a daily updated total of “Early Ballot Returns.”
|
EARLY BALLOT RETURNS
|
|
|
|
Dem |
495,013 |
33.9% |
|
Rep |
611,022 |
41.8% |
|
Unaffiliated & Minor |
355,660 |
24.3% |
|
Total |
1,461,695 |
|
|
DEMOGRAPHICS
|
|
|
|
Female |
51.2% |
|
|
Median Age |
62 |
|
|
Mean Age |
58.7 |
|
Republicans maintain a lead in the Arizona Early Vote at about the same percentage breakdown as previously. One new development is that the Green candidate for Senate, Angela Green (convenient), has dropped out and endorsed Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. There are 6,511 registered Greens in Arizona (although in 2016 the Green Party Senate candidate received 138,000 votes or 5.5 percent from voters of various parties); 1,946 early ballots have been received from Green Party voters thus far. If Angela Green has received a vote on any early ballot it will probably still be tallied. Not sure if any remedies are available under Arizona law for a voter who wishes to change their vote (such as by way of a new, provisional ballot) but it is unlikely.
@Garret_Archer aka the AZ Data Guru goes deeper into the SOS site data, such as analyzing precinct level maps and congressional districts.
Iowa
Like Arizona Iowa allows in-person absentee voting. And like Arizona both in-person and mail-in ballots received are counted together.
|
EARLY BALLOT |
REQUESTED |
SENT |
RECEIVED |
% RECEIVED |
|
Dem |
230,001 |
229,760 |
195,469 |
43.7% |
|
Rep |
185,373 |
185,228 |
160,277 |
35.8% |
|
No Party |
111,994 |
111,880 |
89,440 |
20.0% |
|
Libertarian & Other |
2,968 |
2,964 |
2,268 |
0.5% |
|
Total |
530,336 |
529,832 |
447,454 |
|
Democrats continue to lead in the early ballot in Iowa by just under 8% because the No Party share has ticked up by .7% to 20%.
Georgia
Georgia is another state where early voting ends today, November 2nd. The SOS site does not disaggregate the data by party. It does provide the top 5 counties in terms of turnout, which is updated on an ongoing basis.
TOTAL CAST |
1,829,886 |
|
TOP 5 TURNOUT COUNTIES |
TOTAL VOTE |
% TOTAL |
In-Person |
|
|
Fulton |
212,621 |
11.6% |
Voted |
1,655,018 |
90.4% |
DeKalb |
142,965 |
7.8% |
Mail-In |
|
|
Gwinnett |
135,455 |
7.4% |
Returned |
174,868 |
9.6% |
Cobb |
113,427 |
6.2% |
Outstanding |
93,174 |
|
Henry |
54,920 |
3.0% |
Just for curiosity’s sake I took a three day average of the in-person early vote pre-Oprah and then the vote total today, post-Oprah. During the first three days this week, October 29-31, the average daily in-person vote was just over 148,000. On November 1 the one-day total was almost 158,000. Correlation does not imply causation, but still.
Georgian Ryan Anderson has put together Georgia Votes with breakdowns along age, race, gender, comparative trend line. Very nice.
Texas
Texas also ends its early voting period today, November 2nd. The Texas SOS tracks the results for the 30 largest counties in the state (which represents 12.3 million or about 78% of registered voters) and are not broken down by party.
TOTAL CAST
|
4,337,435
|
|
5 LARGEST COUNTIES
|
TOTAL VOTE
|
% TOTAL REGISTERED
|
5 HIGHEST % COUNTIES |
TOTAL VOTE |
% TOTAL REGISTERED |
In-Person |
|
|
Harris (Houston) |
755,877 |
32.3% |
Comal (New Braunfels) |
44,323 |
43.9% |
Cast |
3,980,578 |
91.8% |
Dallas (Dallas) |
468,715 |
35.1% |
Collin (Plano) |
254,362 |
43.86% |
By-Mail |
|
|
Tarrant (Ft. Worth) |
413,372 |
36.8% |
Williamson (Round Rock) |
145,475 |
43.82% |
Returned |
356,857 |
8.7% |
Bexar (San Antonio) |
370,277 |
33.7% |
Travis (Austin) |
326,927 |
42.1% |
|
|
|
Travis* (Austin) |
326,927 |
42.1% |
Denton (Denton) |
203,580 |
40.9% |
* Apparently Travis County reports results one day behind the other counties.
I have included not only the five largest counties in terms of registered voters but also, for comparison, the top five counties in terms of percentage of registered voters who have voted.
The Texas Tribune has an Early Voting Page that graphs the data county-by-county with comparative benchmarks for 2016,2014, and 2012 elections (h/t txdoubledd). In addition, txjackalope provided a report from a Republican research outfit that breaks down the data in much more detail.
Tennessee
Tennessee early voting ended on November 1st. The SOS site prepares a comparison of early vote through the comparable voting period in the previous two elections, the 2016 Presidential election and the 2014 Midterms.
|
2018 VOTERS |
|
TOTAL |
DIFFERENCE |
% CHANGE |
COUNTIES AHEAD OF PACE |
Through |
1,378,840 |
2016 |
1,675,679 |
-296,839 |
-17.7% |
0 |
11/01 |
2014 |
629,485 |
+749,355 |
+119.0% |
95 |
Tennessee’s early vote ran behind where it was in 2016. Given the partisan breakdown is not given, perhaps this is a good sign that there are fewer early voters now compared to an election where Trump won by 26 points. Compared to the previous midterm election the vote is more than double what it was in 2014, which definitely reflects greater enthusiasm but again without the partisan breakdown it is hard to know who is showing more early vote enthusiasm or if it is even.
Another feature of the comparison prepared by the SOS is a breakdown of the early vote turnout by region.
|
Region |
Voters |
Turnout % |
|
Statewide |
1,378,840 |
34.1% |
|
West Tennessee |
304,711 |
32.7% |
|
Middle Tennessee |
583,232 |
36.8% |
|
East Tennessee |
490,897 |
32.2% |
Montana
Montana has in-person absentee voting whereby you can apply, receive, fill-out, and drop off an absentee ballot at a county election office. It will be opened and counted on election day with the rest of the mail-in ballots (as opposed to being immediately scanned, banked, and ready for an immediate vote dump as soon as the polls close on election day). Montana provides a daily updated spreadsheet of the ballots that have been requested and received broken down by county. That’s it.
|
NUMBER SENT |
NUMBER RECEIVED |
% RECEIVED |
|
423,242 |
278,999 |
65.9% |
Indiana
Indiana has in-person absentee voting as well as mail-in absentee allowed according to statutory criteria. Indiana’s Secretary of State does not seem to aggregate county level absentee ballot return data. It appears to be available through some county election boards but that’s too much for me to try to compile.
For these and other states not mentioned above a nationwide tracker is provided by Michael McDonald at the United States Election Project.