Can you believe it's November already? Time is zipping by.
Anyway, here are the latest figures out of Iowa.
Here are the cumulative numbers for the absentee ballot requests:
Dems 291,022 (43.09%)
Reps 208,374 (30.85%)
Inds 175,142 (25.93%)
Oth 864 (negligible)
TOTAL 675,402
Here are the new ballot requests since the last report:
Dems +5,170
Reps +4,693
Inds +4,872
Absentee ballot requests going down a bit in general as we get closer to election day.
And now, here are the cumulative numbers for actual ballots cast:
Dems 241,430 (43.31%)
Reps 179,675 (32.23%)
Inds 135,547 (24.32%)
Oth 680 (negligible)
TOTAL 557,432
Here are the ballots cast since the previous daily report:
Dems +8,968
Reps +8,403
Inds +7,927
It was kind of a slow day for early voting. We cast about 560 more ballots than Republicans yesterday so that's welcome news. We now lead in ballots cast by 61,755. By the end of early voting in 2008 (about 545,000 ballots cast), we led Republicans by about 94,000 ballots cast. By the end of early voting in 2004 (about 460,000 ballots cast) we were ahead by 52,000 ballots cast. We're running behind 2008, but ahead of 2004. I like our position. Do you?
And now, I offer my prediction of Iowa:
Obama 51.2% The Stench 48.1%
It seems to me by looking at the early voting numbers that the Democratic base in Iowa is more fired up than in other places. It merits repeating: We have bested Republicans in early voting in every single report of the entire early voting period, and all these figures include mail-in ballots.
And according to the latest PPP poll, Indies are breaking for us 50% to 43%, so that is welcome news. And my great hope is that the American public saw a President and a Candidate over the past few days. You know what I mean.