It looks like an earthquake might be coming, forget landslide.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Across the country, Democratic enthusiasm is propelling an enormous wave of early voting
Oct. 14, 2020 at 6:18 p.m. ADT
With less than three weeks to go before Nov. 3, roughly 15 million Americans have already voted in the fall election, reflecting an extraordinary level of participation despite barriers erected by the coronavirus pandemic — and setting a trajectory that could result in the majority of voters casting ballots before Election Day for the first time in U.S. history.
In Georgia this week, voters waited as long as 11 hours to cast their ballots on the first day of early voting. In North Carolina, nearly 1 in 5 of roughly 500,000 who have returned mail ballots so far did not vote in the last presidential election. In Michigan, more than 1 million people — roughly one-fourth of total turnout in 2016 — have already voted.
The picture is so stark that election officials around the country are reporting record early turnout, much of it in person, meaning that more results could be available on election night than previously thought.
So far, much of the early voting appears to be driven by heightened enthusiasm among Democrats. Of the roughly 3.5 million voters who have cast ballots in six states that provide partisan breakdowns, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by roughly 2 to 1, according to a Washington Post analysis of data in Florida, Iowa, Maine, Kentucky, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Additionally, those who have voted include disproportionate numbers of Black voters and women, according to state data — groups that favor former vice president Joe Biden over President Trump in recent polls.
Dozens of voters who have shown up on their states’ first day of early voting over the past several weeks have described a desire to cast their ballots at the first possible moment as a statement against the president.
“Last night felt like Christmas Eve,” said Tony Lewis, 39, who showed up at the Kentucky Exposition Center in
Louisville on Tuesday just as polls opened at 8:30 a.m. for the first day of in-person voting. “I just wanted to get out and be one of the first ones to cast my vote to hopefully end the insanity we are living in under the current administration.”
Republicans say the heavy turnout so far shows that Democratic votes are coming in earlier but not necessarily in higher numbers in the end. The Trump campaign and other Republicans say that Biden might win the early vote — but that the president will catch up on Election Day among supporters who do not trust mail balloting.
“For months, Democrats have pinned all their hopes on mail ballots, irresponsibly scared voters away from the polls and cannibalized their Election Day voters in favor of vote-by-mail,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Thea McDonald. “Republicans will show up in person on Election Day and reelect President Trump.”
While half of all likely voters said they planned to vote early, a sharp partisan breakdown emerges over when people say they will cast their ballots, according to a Post-ABC poll conducted Oct. 6 through 9.
A 64 percent majority of likely voters supporting Biden said they planned to vote early. Among likely voters supporting Trump, a 61 percent majority planned to vote on Election Day.
“I think the angry Trump voter is still a real thing, but, unfortunately, we won’t know how real until the election is over,” said Ryan Tyson, a principal at the Tyson Group, a voter data and polling firm in Florida with ties to state Republicans. “They just aren’t showing themselves yet.”
Some Republicans are turning out early. In Ohio, where early voting began last week, strong support for Trump was evident through the state’s Appalachian region.
“He is a president that is for the people, and he is not a politician, which is what we need,” said retiree Jerry Morkassel, 79, of Pike County, Ohio. “You sure as hell know where he stands.”
Washington Post-University of Maryland poll: Most Americans want to vote before Election Day, a significant shift from previous years
Election administrators have been preparing for months for a surge in mail voting among Americans trying to avoid coronavirus infection at the polls. And operatives in both parties expected the early vote to favor Biden, in part because Trump’s repeated attacks on the integrity of mail voting have resonated more deeply with his own supporters, who are eschewing mail ballots to an extent that has alarmed GOP operatives.
Even so, the numbers trickling in as early voting kicks off in state after state across the country offer a more dramatic picture than what many expected.
The number of people who have voted so far this year is equivalent to about 10 percent of the 2016 electorate, according to Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida who tracks early and mail-in voting on his website, the United States Elections Project. More than 20 states are set to offer early voting in the coming weeks, including North Carolina on Thursday.
Some voters who had planned to vote by mail are showing up in person to avoid delays with the U.S. Postal Service. Many others are so determined to vote — and be seen doing it at the first available chance — that they are enduring hours-long lines despite the other voting options available.
“Four years of Donald Trump is enough for me,” said Victor Tellesco, a 50-year-old from the Phoenix suburbs who voted for the first time in his life on Arizona’s first day of early voting last week. Tellesco, a registered Democrat, had requested and received a mail ballot, but he decided not to wait.
“Every time I see him on TV, my blood pressure goes up,” he said. “It just made me feel like I needed to vote this year. I don’t know why I’ve never voted before. But this year, it feels like I needed to vote.”
While polls show that Democrats are more likely to vote by mail this year, there are signs that many are abandoning those plans and showing up in person instead. That trend was apparent this week in Fulton County, Ga., where it helped drive long lines at early voting centers, officials said.
“We’re getting a lot of reports of people canceling their ballots by mail,” said Rick Barron, the elections chief in Fulton County, home of downtown Atlanta.
McDonald, the political scientist, said the likely Democratic lean of the early vote is undeniable — but he also urged caution until more numbers come in from other states.
Still, the early numbers are proving to be larger than even Democrats predicted. Three out of four voters in Pennsylvania who have returned their ballots, for instance, are registered Democrats. In increasingly Democratic Virginia, where early voting began in September with hours-long lines in suburban Washington, nearly 1.7 million voters had cast ballots by Wednesday, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project — more than triple the number who voted early or by mail overall in 2016. In Kentucky, nearly 70 percent of mail ballots cast have come from registered Democrats.
In Georgia, so many people were determined to vote in person at the first chance of early voting Monday that they withstood lines that lasted throughout the day. A record 242,000 people voted in the first two days.
more...