We've been waiting for 6 days to get a result in NY-20, and we could finally get some answers in the coming days. A court ruled today that absentee ballots could start being counted on Wednesday. (Republicans were arguing that counties should have to wait until all absentee ballots come in next week.)
The guessing game is now what will happen when those absentee ballots are counted. Historically, absentee ballots have favored Republicans, but Democrats have developed a much better ground game over the past few years. We saw that in 2008, when Democrats dominated the early and absentee vote in many state. The recount saga in Minnesota has also shown that absentee ballots can favor Democrats, as Al Franken has gained every time a new batch has been counted.
So what about the ballots in NY-20? The State Board of Elections provides a PDF with raw data about the 6,700 absentee ballots that have been returned (county breakdown and partisan breakdown).
Much has been made about the partisan breakdown. Registered Republicans narrowly outpace registered Democrats, but that means little: The district-at-large has far more registered Republicans, and that did not prevent Murphy from reaching 50%. Much more interesting is a county-by-county breakdown of these absentee ballots.
There's been very little discussion of such a breakdown, and that's a shame: Campaign Diaries does the math and finds that counties where Murphy did very well are dramatically over-represented in the pool of absentee ballots:
Columbia County, which gave the Democrat 56% of the vote, cast 9.8% of the district's votes last Tuesday; but 15,3% of the absentee ballots come from there!
Two other counties that gave Murphy 56% are over-represented. Warren County and Washington County represented 10% and 8,1% of last Tuesday's districtwide, respectively; but they make up 15% and 9,2% of the incoming absentee ballots!
Inversely, Saratoga County, which saved Tedisco's candidacy by giving him 54% of the vote, represented 36% of the districtwide vote last Tuesday. Now, only 27% of absentee ballots come from Saratoga - a sharp drop.
Let's put this otherwise: Murphy is winning Columbia County and Warren County by 12%; he is losing Saratoga by 8%. Last Tuesday, Columbia and Warren combined made up 20% of the districtwide vote, while Saratoga made up 36%. Now, there are more absentee ballots from Warren and Columbia combined than from Saratoga.
Murphy could get a big lead in the coming days!