News About Early Voter Turnout In Kansas Over Amendment Banning Abortion: Democrats Are Showing Up.

Merlin196357

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Wednesday July 27, 2022 · 6:31 PM PDT

2022/07/27 · 18:31

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From the AP:

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Early voting is surging in Kansas ahead of next week’s statewide abortion vote and the electorate so far is leaning more Democratic than usual.

More than 2½ times as many people had cast early ballots as of Tuesday compared to the same point in the 2018 mid-term primary, the Kansas secretary of state’s office reported. Voters will decide Aug. 2 whether to amend the Kansas Constitution to allow the Legislature to further restrict or ban abortion.

Polling has suggested that Democrats are far stronger supporters of abortion-rights than Republicans, and Democrats so far make up 42% of the people who have cast ballots early in Kansas, compared to 44% for Republicans. Over the past 10 years, Republicans have typically cast twice as many ballots in a primary election as Democrats. Unaffiliated voters — who can’t participate in a partisan primary unless they pick a party label — have cast nearly 14% of the early votes.

I had heard about this on MSNBC today.

To put this in perspective:

In Kansas, Republicans have long had an advantage in voter numbers. As of July 1, they made up about 44% of the state’s 1.9 million registered voters, compared to 26% for Democrats and 29% for unaffiliated voters. Also, Democrats historically have had fewer competitive primaries than Republicans for statewide and legislative offices, and that’s true this year. Both of those historical trends normally would argue for low Democratic turnout.

So early voting indicates that Democrats are almost at parity with Republicans. What I think Democrats should do in Kansas is try to persuade more of those unaffiliated voters to show up for the early vote.

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