Here are the latest figures out of Iowa.
First here are the numbers for the absentee ballot requests:
Dems 200,472 (46.66%)
Reps 130,936 (30.48%)
Inds 97,802 (22.76%)
Oth 409 (negligible)
TOTAL 429,619
Here are the new ballot requests since the last report:
Dems +7,625
Reps +6,132
Inds +5,948
Republicans had held an advantage over Democrats in terms of ballot requests over the last several days, but Democrats have the lead back at least for this daily report. We'll see if the pendulum has swung back permanently on this metric over the next few days.
And now, here are the numbers for actual ballots cast:
Dems 123,993 (51.41%)
Reps 70,145 (29.08%)
Inds 46,842 (19.42%)
Oth 198 (negligible)
TOTAL 241,178
Here are the ballots cast since the previous daily report: 13,000
Dems +8,713
Reps +7,993
Inds +5,140
It was a huge day for early voting yesterday. About 22,000 ballots were cast, as opposed to the previous daily report which showed just 13,000 ballots cast.
Over the past few days, Republicans have been right behind us in terms of ballots cast, but Democrats have still outvoted Republicans every single day of the early voting period so far. And now that Republican absentee ballot requests have begun to wane, let's hope that the Democratic dominance of early voting in Iowa continues. Let's keep up the good work!
Just a reminder: Democrats were ahead of Republicans in the Iowa early voting period in 2008 about 47% to 29%. It does not look like we will match those figures this time around. But if we could get something like 46% to 33% before election day, that would be a totally acceptable and reasonable goal for our side.
Here is a link to the report: http://sos.iowa.gov/...