As we all know, there was a massive burst of initial African American turnout in Georgia.
As we all know, there was a massive burst of initial African American turnout in Georgia. For the first few days, African Americans made up around 40% of the voters who took advantage of early voting there. Gradually, day by day, this percentage declined. 38.2%. Then 37.4%. Finally down to 35.1%.
Today, I am happy to report that African American turnout in Georgia is once again on the rise, at least for the moment. As of this morning, including last night's totals, African Americans make up 35.4% of the early voters in Georgia, including mail-in absentee ballots. In terms of registered voters, African Americans make up only 29.3% of the electorate, so this is very good news.
1,206,891 Georgians have now voted in the 2008 General Election. This is almost double the 670,102 voters who cast an early vote in 2004. And we're still several days away from November 4th. This is astonishing.
According to the most recent poll conducted in Georgia by Insider Advantage, Obama may actually be pulling ahead of McCain in the state:
"While this is a tight race, the problem for McCain is that all but 3 percent of whites have made their decision and approximately 8 percent of black voters have continued to say they are undecided or voting ‘other.’ This will likely move closer to 95 percent for Obama when all said and done. Obama has room to go up.
"If the race were to remain the way it is today, you won’t see these numbers come to fruition until very late in the night of Nov. 4 or perhaps the next day. The early numbers will likely show McCain ahead, as the counties where Obama is doing best are some of the largest counties and will be the slowest to report."
It is interesting to note that both USelectionatlas.org and Pollster.com list the Obama/McCain race in Georgia as a tossup right now. I believe that if African Americans can make up 32% of the electorate or more through election day (as opposed to 25% in 2004), Obama will carry Georgia.
Here is my official prediction of Georgia:
..................Obama......McCain.......Barr/Other
White (63%).....26%.......70%.........4%
Black (32.5%)...95%.......3%..........2%
Other (4.5%)....65%.......32%.........3%
Which results in: Obama 50.18%, McCain 46.515%, Barr/Other 3.305%
Granted this seems like a pretty big margin (almost 4 percentage points) for Obama there, but even if his support falls a little in Georgia, it's very conceivable that he could win there.
One final fact I will leave you with.
Obama campaign offices in Georgia: 7
McCain campaign offices in Georgia: 0
Early signs point to Yes We Can!