Tag Archives: Early Voting

Kennedy Breaks 20 Percent Threshold; Nevada’s Lombardo Endorses One-Time Opponent; US Governors’ Approval Ratings; Early Voting Trends Ahead of Tuesday

By Jim Ellis — Monday, Nov. 6, 2023

President

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running as an Independent general election candidate.

Quinnipiac Poll: Kennedy Breaks 20 Percent Threshold — A new national Quinnipiac University survey (Oct. 26-30; 1,772 US Adults; 1,610 US registered voters; live interview) finds Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running as an Independent general election candidate, securing 22 percent support in a ballot test featuring him, President Joe Biden, and former President Donald Trump. The Kennedy presence dragged both President Biden (39 percent) and Mr. Trump (36 percent) below the 40 percent mark. Kennedy’s strongest groups were voters aged 18-34 (38 percent), Independents (36 percent), and Hispanics (33 percent).

As has been the case with other polling, Kennedy draws slightly more support from the Trump/Republican coalition than he does from the Biden/Democratic voter group. In this particular survey, 14 percent of Republicans and 12 percent of Democrats support Kennedy.

House

NV-4: Governor Endorses Ex-North Las Vegas Mayor — Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) has already waded into the 4th Congressional District Republican primary to endorse former North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, a Democrat turned Republican. Interestingly, Lee opposed Lombardo in the 2022 governor’s race, but fared poorly in garnering only eight percent support. Lombardo, then the Clark County Sheriff, would go on to defeat incumbent Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) in the associated general election to become the only challenger to unseat either a sitting governor or a senator in the entire country.

The 2024 4th District Republican primary winner will challenge Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Las Vegas) in what is likely to become a competitive race. The FiveThirtyEight data organization rates NV-4 as D+5. The Daily Kos Elections site ranks the district as the 34th most vulnerable seat in the 213-member Democratic Conference.

Governor

Morning Consult: Governor Approval Survey — The Morning Consult firm released their regular report measuring job approval scores of all 50 US governors and found everyone in positive territory. Govs. Phil Scott (R-VT; 83:14 percent approval/disapproval), Mark Gordon (R-WY; 73:13 percent), Chris Sununu (R-NH; 67:28 percent), Josh Green (D-HI; 66:25 percent), and Mike Dunleavy (R-AK; 63:25 percent) were the five governors commanding the strongest ratios.

The five with the worst ratings are: Govs. Tina Kotek (D-OR; 44:41 percent approval/ disapproval), Tate Reeves (R-MS; 46:44 percent), Katie Hobbs (D-AZ; 48:40 percent), Kim Reynolds (R-IA; 49:47 percent), and outgoing Gov. John Bel Edwards (D-LA; 49:43 percent). The poorer scores were particularly concerning for Mississippi Gov. Reeves, who is on the ballot for re-election Tuesday, Gov. Reynolds in Iowa who was consistently highly rated in previous surveys, and Gov. Edwards who will leave office in December but, heretofore, had enjoyed reliably positive scores.

States

Early Voting: Monitoring Trends Before Tuesday — Since most states have adopted some form of early voting, analyzing the pre-election vote has proven to be an accurate way to forecast momentum. Monitoring early voting becomes a reliable precursor to forecasting which party will do better when all ballots are counted. Unfortunately, for Tuesday’s election, Mississippi is one of the three states that has no early voting program. Kentucky only allows in-person early voting on the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday before the election so early trends are not available in those two states.

The Virginia numbers for the state’s legislative races are interesting. As reported through Nov. 2 from the Target Smart organization, Republican early voting is up three percentage points when compared to the party’s 2021 performance, while Democrats are down 2.7 percent under the same model. Unaffiliated voters are down 0.4 percent from their 2021 performance statistics. Democrats, however, still have more people casting their ballots than do Republicans and unaffiliated voters (52.2 percent of early ballots come from Democrats, 32.7 percent from Republicans, and 15.0 percent from the unaffiliated segment).

The Virginia Public Access Project also charts the pre-election voting. In addition to the early vote by party, they also track the early in-person vote. Here, Republicans have clear momentum for the Tuesday legislative elections. Compared to the 2021 turnout (numbers are recorded in 2021 and 2023 at the 16-day before election mark), Republican early in-person turnout is up 7.4 percentage points, while Democratic early in-person participation is down 6.3 points. Again, however, more Democrats than Republicans have voted, but the comparison within each party’s previous performance has routinely proven significant.

Early Votes: Key Senate States

By Jim Ellis — Friday, Oct. 28, 2022

Early Voting Statistics — The Target Smart data organization continues to update early voting statistics from around the country, and we see several situations for both parties where the early vote totals in what should be more favorable states are showing a greater surge for the opposing party.

Of the key Senate races, we see four states where Republicans are either the incumbent party or should have a more favorable early vote performance, but Democrats are gaining the early edge: Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In four others, the GOP is performing better in places that are typically better for Democrats or where they have the incumbent candidate: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and New Hampshire.

Before delving into these key states, let’s take an updated look at Target Smart’s national report. Through Wednesday, Oct. 26, a total of 12,751,622 individuals have cast early votes in the 42 reporting states that employ an early voting procedure or are accepting and reporting mailed absentee ballots. At this point, 52.2 percent of the returned ballots come from Democrats, 37.9 percent from Republicans, and 9.9 percent from non-affiliated or independent voters.

Such a partisan pattern is consistent with previous years. Democrats tend to use early voting in a more prevalent manner than Republicans, with the GOP then dominating election day turnout. In comparison to the partisan complexion seen in 2020, so far, Democrats are up one full percentage point in the national early voting turnout while Republicans are down .4 percent. The non-affiliated total is down .6 percent.

These numbers are changing day by day, and now just about half-way through the early voting calendar, we can expect to see many differences occurring within the next week. The grand early vote total so far represents 31.1 percent of the aggregate number of people who voted early in the 2020 election.

Of the four states where Democrats have at least a preliminary advantage in early voting, the most significant are Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Pennsylvania — In the Keystone State, more than 683,000 people already have cast ballots. In 2020, a total of 1.179 million voted early according to Target Smart, so the 2022 number is a large sample. In 2020, just over 17 percent of the total electorate voted early.

Here, the Democrats have a wide advantage. A total of 73.4 percent of the recorded early vote are registered Democrats versus just 23.0 percent who are Republicans. These numbers represent a 6.3 percent increase in Democratic performance based upon 2020, while Republicans are down 2.8 percent.

Wisconsin — A little more than 302,000 people already have voted. Here, 39.9 percent of the early voters are Democrats, an improvement of 3.8 percentage points based upon their 2020 performance rate. Republicans are down a whopping 11.8 percentage points.

Iowa — Fewer than 100,000 people already have voted. Of those, 58.7 percent are registered Democrats, an improvement of 7.8 percentage points over the party’s 2020 performance. Republicans are just about even with their 2020 mark, down just half a percentage point.

Ohio — Numbers here also favor the Democrats. More than 529,000 people already have voted, which represents about 30 percent of the total early votes in 2020. A total of 44.2 percent of this year’s early voters are Democrats versus 40.3 percent who are Republican. This translates into a 3.0 percentage improvement for Democrats over their 2020 number, and a decline of 3.9 points for Republicans.

Republicans, however, are outperforming Democrats in another set of key Senate states.

Arizona — More than 530,000 people already have cast their 2022 midterm election ballot. This so far represents just over 50 percent of the number who voted early two years ago. Here, 48.0 percent of the voters are Republican, and 47.0 percent Democratic. These numbers represent a 2.6 percent increase for Republicans and a 1.2 percent decrease for Democrats.

Colorado — Surprising numbers are being seen here. In a state that has been moving decidedly toward the Democrats, it is the Republicans who have so far greatly increased their early voting participation rate.

Some 266,000 people have voted early this year in the Centennial State. This number represents just under a quarter of the number who voted early in 2022. A total of 49.3 percent of this year’s early voters are Democrats, down 4.4 points from two years ago. For Republicans, 43.2 percent of the early voters are their registrants. This represents a GOP increase of 5.8 percentage points from their 2020 performance.

Nevada — Home of another key Senate race, the GOP has an early vote growth advantage in the Silver State. At this point, Target Smart records slightly more than 142,000 early votes, meaning just over 32 percent of the 2020 aggregate early number. The breakdown is 50.8 percent for Democrats and 42.7 percent for Republicans. This means Democrats are down about .3 percent from their 2020 participation rate, while Republicans are up just under two full percentage points. Nevada elections are always tight, so even small fluctuations like these can mean a great deal.

New Hampshire — Our final state in this report; though the early totals are small, about 21,000 voters, which represents only about 16.5 percent of the 2020 early aggregate, the trends are significant. A total of 54.0 percent of the new early voters are Democratic, down .7 percent from 2020, while the Republican total has grown 4.7 percentage points.

While none of these numbers are indicative of the final vote totals in any of the eight states, the early totals have given us previous clues as to which party has the momentum and enthusiasm in a particular place. We will continue to monitor these and other important states through the early voting process.

First Early Vote Report; NY Judge Nixes Pre-Election Absentee Ballot Counting, Zeldin Gains Momentum; Grassley’s Lead More Comfortable

By Jim Ellis — Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022

Voting

Target Smart: First Early Vote Report — The Target Smart data organization has released their first major report highlighting the earliest of early voting figures (through Oct. 19). Though the pre-election ballot casting cycle still has multiple days remaining for the 45 states that employ some form of an early voting procedure, we already see turnout figures very similar to the 2020 partisan voting pattern.

In the Senate battleground states, Target Smart has recorded over 2.7 million ballots already cast. This is just under one-third the number of people who voted early in these states back in 2020 and already a half-million more than the total early votes cast in the 2018 midterm.

At this point, it appears that the partisan early vote complexion nationally and in the battleground states is similar to what we saw unfold in 2020. Therefore, if Republicans are headed for a significant bump in this midterm turnout, it is not yet evident from the preliminary early voting reports.

New York: Judge Strikes Down Absentee Ballot Pre-Election Counting — New York is already one of the slowest ballot counting states, and a judicial ruling rendered on Friday will likely lead to an even slower count. The legislature and governor had enacted a law that allowed election officials to count the received absentee ballots before the election with the caveat that no results were released. The judicial ruling struck down this new law, saying such a process is unconstitutional under New York law. Therefore, we can count on not receiving final returns until some six weeks post-election day.

Senate

Iowa: Sen. Grassley’s More Comfortable Lead — On the heels of the Des Moines Register/ Selzer & Company poll (Oct. 9-12; 620 likely Iowa voters) that found Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) holding only a three-point lead over retired Navy Adm. Michael Franken (D), The Tarrance Group followed with their own study. This poll (Oct. 15-19; 600 likely Iowa general election voters; live interview) restores the senator to a double-digit lead, 53-42 percent. Still, this is a competitive contest and a race to watch in this election cycle’s final days.

Washington: Big Conflict — Once again, we see two polling firms testing at exactly the same time in the same Senate race (Oct. 19-20) but arriving at radically different conclusions. Public Policy Polling, surveying for the Northwest Progressive Institute (782 likely Washington voters; live interview & text) sees Sen. Patty Murray (D) topping Republican Tiffany Smiley, 52-42 percent, which is consistent with most other surveys and the Aug. 2 jungle primary vote (Murray 54-Smiley 32 percent). Conversely, the co/efficient firm (1,181 likely Washington voters; live interview & text) sees only a three-point margin between the two candidates, 48-45 percent, in the senator’s favor.

Survey USA was also in the field during the similar period (Oct. 14-19; 589 likely Washington voters; online) and they split the difference between PPP and co/efficient. S-USA returned a 49-41 percent Murray advantage. Though this race has several times touched upon competitiveness, the jungle primary and Washington voter history again suggests an impending victory for Sen. Murray.

Governor

New York: Rep. Zeldin Takes Lead — The last week has brought new data regarding the New York governor’s race. Several pollsters are suggesting that US Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley/East Long Island) is gaining momentum against Gov. Kathy Hochul (D). The co/efficient firm (Oct. 18-19; 1,056 likely New York general election voters; live interview & text) reports their ballot test showing, for the first time, Rep. Zeldin taking a one-point, 46-45 percent, lead.

The five previously released October polls saw Rep. Zeldin trailing by 8 (Marist College), 6 (Schoen Cooperman Research), 11 (Siena College), 4 (Quinnipiac University), and 6 points (Survey USA). Now, co/efficient takes him to a one-point edge. It appears that the New York governor’s race is heading toward an interesting conclusion.

Early Voting Open in Four States; Sen. Bennet Up Comfortably in Colorado; Utah Senate Polling Shows Close Results; Florida House Turmoil

By Jim Ellis — Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022

Voting

Early voting has begun in Minnesota, South Dakota, Virginia, and Wyoming.

Voting Begins: Early Voting Open in Four States — The first general election votes of the 2022 election cycle will be received soon. The early voting calendar has opened in Minnesota, South Dakota, Virginia, and Wyoming. Ballots have been mailed to voters in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, so we can expect to see early voting commence in those two states, as well.

Most of the states return to their pre-2020 voting status, since the court-ordered Covid related universal mailing voting rules were in effect only for the previous election year unless the state enacted new electoral procedures in their 2021-22 legislative session. Even though the universal mail balloting provisions revert to previous law, 45 states now feature some type of early voting procedure.

Senate

Colorado: Sen. Bennet Up Comfortably — Emerson College tested the Centennial State electorate (Sept. 18-19; 1,000 likely Colorado general election voters; multiple sampling techniques) and found Sen. Michael Bennet (D) leading GOP businessman Joe O’Dea by a ten-point, 46-36 percent, margin. Republicans have tagged this race as an upset possibility, but this poll shows little weakness for the Democratic incumbent who is seeking his third full term.

Utah: Another Close Result — Polling data suggests that the Utah Senate race is the closest campaign that attracts the least national attention. A new Dan Jones & Associates survey for the Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics (Sept. 3-21; 815 registered Utah voters; 786 likely general election voters) finds Sen. Mike Lee (R) ahead of Independent Evan McMullin by only a 37-34 percent margin. Though this poll has a very long sampling period, which adversely affects accuracy, it is consistent with some others we’ve seen of this race.

Early in September, both Impact Research and Kurt Jetta, polling for the Center Street PAC, found the candidates languishing within a combined four-point range. Impact Research actually found McMullen claiming a one-point edge.

Back in April, the majority of Utah Democratic Party convention delegates voted not to field a candidate for the purpose of coalescing behind McMullin. Though he is more conservative than what most of the delegates would have desired in a candidate, they did want to see McMullin have a one-on-one shot to challenge Sen. Lee.

House

FL-22: Rep. Deutch Announces Resignation Plans — In February, Florida Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Boca Raton) announced that he would leave the House before the end of the current legislative session in order to assume the leadership of the American Jewish Committee. At the time, Deutch said he would leave sometime on or around Oct. 1. Late last week, the congressman confirmed he will officially resign his seat before the end of September.

It is unlikely that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) will have the time to call a special election to replace Deutch for a probable lame duck session since Florida law dictates a relatively long voting schedule period once such an election is called. Therefore, with the party nominations having been decided in the Aug. 23 primary, the new 23rd District will remain open until the new Congress convenes on Jan. 3, 2023. In the open seat general election, Broward County Commissioner Jared Moskowitz (D) is favored over Republican Joe Budd in a South Florida district that the FiveThirtyEight data organization rates D+9.

The Final Polls

By Jim Ellis

Nov. 2, 2020 — Tomorrow is the official Election Day, but with early voting delivering nearly 87 million votes and 21 states allowing ballots to come in after Nov. 3, it is likely that many Senate and House races will languish in political overtime. With that background, we look at the polling range of the most recent surveys in battleground Senate races along with the number of people who have already cast their ballots in each state (early voting statistics from TargetSmart.com):

ALABAMA:
• Sen. Doug Jones (D) vs. Tommy Tuberville (R)
Polling Range
High: Cygnal (Oct. 26-28) – Tuberville +14
Low: Auburn U Montgomery (Oct. 23-28) – Tuberville +11
No Early Voting

ALASKA:
• Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) vs. Dr. Al Gross (I/D)
Polling Range
High: Gravis Marketing (Oct. 21-23) – Sullivan +3
Low: Change Research (Oct. 16-19) – Sullivan +3

Early Voting Stats:
Republican: 49.1%	Total Early Voting 2020: 131,261
Democrat: 33.0%	Total Early Voting 2016: 64,583
Unaffiliated: 17.9%	Percent Increase: 103%

ARIZONA:
• Sen. Martha McSally (R) vs. Mark Kelly (D)
Polling Range
High: Siena College/NYT (Oct. 26-30) – Kelly +7
Low: Emerson College (Oct. 29-31) – Kelly +3

Early Voting Stats:
Republican: 47.0%	Total Early Voting 2020: 2,376,706
Democrat: 46.4%	Total Early Voting 2016: 1,658,410
Unaffiliated: 6.6%	Percent Increase: 43%

COLORADO:
• Sen. Cory Gardner (R) vs. Ex-Gov. John Hickenlooper (D)
Polling Range
High: RMG Research (Oct. 9-15) – Hickenlooper +9
Low: Morning Consult (Oct. 11-20) – Hickenlooper +8

Early Voting Stats:
Democrat: 47.0%	Total Early Voting 2020: 2,376,706
Republican: 42.7%	Total Early Voting 2016: 1,658,410
Unaffiliated: 9.6%	Percent Increase: 39%

GEORGIA-A:
• Sen. David Perdue (R) vs. Jon Ossoff (D)
Polling Range
High: Public Policy Polling (Oct. 27-28) – Ossoff +3
Low: Landmark Communications (Oct. 28) – Even

GEORGIA-B: Jungle Primary
• (Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) vs. Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) and Rep. Doug Collins (R)
High: Public Policy Polling (Oct. 27-28) – Warnock +19
                                                             – Loeffler + 8
                                                               (over Collins)
Low: Emerson College (Oct. 29-31) – Warnock +11
                                                        – Collins +3
                                                          (over Loeffler)

Early Voting Stats:
Republican: 49.8%	Total Early Voting 2020: 3,812,140
Democrat: 42.9%	Total Early Voting 2016: 2,385,990
Unaffiliated: 7.3%	Percent Increase: 60%

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On Election Night, Keep Your Eyes on Arizona, Florida and Wisconsin

By Jim Ellis

Oct. 29, 2020 — There has been prevalent speculation that we may not see a winner in the presidential election and certainly in some Senate and House races come the evening of Nov. 3, but research into the processing and counting systems of each state suggests such a conclusion may actually prove unlikely.

The election procedures in Arizona, Florida, and Wisconsin all point to having a victory projection coming from these states on election night, thus making them the “tells” for the national vote. If President Trump loses either Arizona or Florida, it will almost assuredly secure a Joe Biden victory. On the other hand, should the president sweep the three aforementioned states, he will be headed toward clinching re-election.

The huge number of precast, or early votes, around the country is another mitigating fact that may halt the need to advance into political overtime, at least for the presidential race. Through Monday, almost 60 million people have voted (59,095,114 according to the Target Smart statistical organization), meaning these ballots and many more will be stacked in vote centers awaiting processing and counting.

The overwhelming early voting response, up 100 percent from this time in 2016, will assuredly lessen the number of in-person voters on Election Day, especially since the early vote number will continue to grow throughout the balance of this week.

Generally, the state processing and tabulation procedures fall into one of three categories: counting the ballots as they arrive, but not releasing totals until after the polls close; keeping the received ballots until the morning of Election Day when counting can begin; or, having to wait until the polls close before beginning to count.

First, the pre-election counting states: 23 may begin tallying as ballots are received but are prohibited from releasing any vote totals. They are:

• Arizona
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Florida
• Hawaii
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Maryland
• Montana
• Nebraska
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Utah
• Wisconsin

Eleven states are authorized to begin counting the morning of Election Day:
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National Early Voting Report

By Jim Ellis

Oct. 31, 2018 — Now more than halfway through the early voting period in the 37 states that offer early voting options for the populace, some places are turning in record participation rates. Each state has various nuances in their early voting procedures, so comparing the early reports to each other is of little value. Going back to contrast the current 2018 reported numbers with how that particular state voted in the last midterm election (2014) does have significance, however.

Already, in the latest available reports according to the United States Election Project administered by the personnel at the University of Florida, seven states are reporting more received early voting ballots than were recorded for the entire 2014 pre-election period. They are:

• Tennessee – 162.3% more ballots (1,029,846 versus 634,364 recorded in 2014)
• Texas – 144.3% increase (2,980,915 versus 2,066,368 recorded in 2014)
• Indiana – 127.9% increase (292,726 versus 228,932 recorded in 2014)
• Nevada – 122.5% increase (372,455 versus 304,005 recorded in 2014)
• Georgia – 111.1% increase (1,188,636 versus 1,069,912 recorded in 2014)
• Minnesota – 106.0% increase (249,909 versus 235,808 recorded in 2014)
• Delaware – 103.2% more ballots (8,550 versus 8,288 recorded in 2014)

An additional seven states have so far recorded better than 85 percent of their early voting total in comparison to their entire 2014 pre-election voting universe:

• North Carolina – 97.1% of previous (1,140,657 versus 1,174,188 recorded in 2014)
• Virginia – 94.2% of previous total (191,755 versus 203,556 recorded in 2014)
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