A few weeks into early voting, we’re seeing both inspirational turnout and downright infuriating news. Let’s start with the good stuff.
From the 10,000 foot view, the early returns look great for Democrats. In many places where it has already started, there have been far more early votes cast in this election than in 2014, the last midterm election. The numbers, updated daily, can be found HERE, put together by the non-profit Elect Project. And according to New York Times polling, Democrats are far more enthusiastic this year, both compared to 2014 and in general.
In particular, we're seeing big increases in battleground territories, where big Senate and state legislature elections are taking place.
North Carolina: The State Elections Board said about 133,000 voters cast in-person ballots on Wednesday, adding up to around 12,000 more votes than the beginning of the 2014 election.
Indiana: Residents in Hamilton County are casting ballots at a rate 10 times higher than four years ago and almost as high as in the 2016 presidential election. Similarly, Marion and Johnson counties are on pace for early voting totals far higher than in 2014.
“These numbers are striking … eye-popping,” said Robert Dion, a professor of political science at the University of Evansville. “You normally do not see this kind of intense interest in a midterm.”
Tennessee: Voting numbers shattered the state's past two midterm numbers and were not far behind Tennessee's pace set during the 2016 presidential election.
In all, 120,893 people voted Wednesday in Tennessee in the midterm general election. The tally also includes absentee-by-mail votes collected that day and votes made at nursing homes.
The total is only around 22,000 less than the 143,141 people who voted early during the 2016 presidential election, which typically far outpaces midterms. The state's first-day total was nearly four times the 32,565 people who voted on the first day of early voting for the 2014 midterm election.
Unfortunately, GOP-run states have not prepared for the crush of newly engaged voters (probably because they do whatever they can to make voting harder), and in Tennessee, registrations have been backed up to the point that some people won’t be able to vote early.
And wouldn't you know it — the big backlog just so happens to be around Memphis, a majority African-American city.
So much of the progressive strategy has been to mobilize people who are eligible to vote but have felt left behind and disengaged, which is both a smarter and more sustainable tactic than trying yet again to win over Republicans. GOP officials are doing whatever they can to throttle the surge of activism and stop minority (and Democratic-leaning) voters from casting their ballots. It’s happening in Texas and of course in Georgia, where things have gotten even worse since the chaos of a few weeks ago.
Just last week in Georgia, a bus bringing Black voters to the polls was pulled over by police under some dubious pretense, waylaying dozens of people trying to exercise their democratic rights. The bus was a moving target, as it was emblazoned with the Black Voters Matter logo, which is sadly a kind of bullseye for vote-suppressing Georgian officials.
Meanwhile, over a thousand absentee ballots — again, mostly from Black and Latinx voters — have been rejected in Georgia for no good (or very minor, intentionally confusing) reasons. And even worse: over 100,000 voters were purged from the rolls there last year because they didn’t vote in the last few elections, which is the same lame justification Republicans used to justify Ohio’s mass voter purge (which was OK'd by the right-wing Supreme Court).
To combat this, there a few great GOTV groups you can help right now, including the Black Voters Matter project and Vote Riders. They are doing such crucial work in the face of blatant obstruction and racism.
You can DONATE to these GOTV groups HERE!
In Kansas, another hub of voter suppression, polling places have been eliminated all over rural, minority-heavy districts. Kris Kobach, the architect of these schemes, is now running for governor in a neck-and-neck race with Laura Kelly, a progressive Democrat who would provide a fundamental change in a state that has been wrecked by tax breaks for the rich.
You can donate to Laura Kelly’s campaign HERE!
I have searched high and low for different groups that are giving voters rides to the polls, to combat the unfair voting site closures, but I have largely come up empty. Of course, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. For example, an amazing grassroots group in PA called Lancaster Stands Up is doing this kind of work, but you wouldn’t know it if it weren’t for some profiles in progressive publications.
(LSU is helping Jess King, who is running for Congress in PA-11. You should seriously send a donation, because her victory would be absolutely game-changing in so many ways.)
It's just way harder to find these groups than it should be, so one project we face beyond this November is creating an easier way to identify these groups nationwide and send them support. I am very much in favor of local activists making the decisions and leading the way, and hate when national party power brokers in the DCCC swoop in and basically install bland corporate candidates.
But I also think it is absolutely necessary to support the local groups from afar with resources and money. Spotlighting and helping those groups will be a major initiative here at Progressives Everywhere going forward after November 6th. If you are part of a group doing this great work, please let me know: ProgressivesEverywhere@gmail.com!
Also: I created this fundraising page for the Democratic House candidates running in pure toss-up races this November. Right now, there are 28 of them.
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