Running the Early Vote Numbers in Georgia

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

In Georgia, 825,983 voters have cast their ballots early, a stunning number – just about one quarter of the total vote in the state last cycle. Fascinatingly, women are coming out early – the split is 56.1 percent women, 41.1 percent men, with 2.1 percent listed as “unknown.” (Is this some Julia Sweeney “It’s Pat” sketch or something?)

The racial breakdown of the early voters is 60.7 percent white, 35.6 percent black. In 2004, 25.4 percent of voters in the general election were black.

Research 2000 puts the white/black split in their most recent sample at 66-27. They have the black vote splitting 91-5 percent, and the white vote splitting 72-21. (SurveyUSA puts Obama doing a bit better among whites, trailing 69-25.)

Applying the percentages to the total number of votes cast, we calculate 501,372 votes have been cast by whites so far, and 294,050 votes have been cast by blacks so far.

Now, on to trying to estimate how many votes each candidate has gotten so far. No offense to whoever is running “African-Americans for Barr”, but I’m going to split the black vote 95 percent for Obama, 5 percent for McCain. This comes out to 279,347 black votes for Obama and 14,703 black votes for McCain. Obama’s margin among black voters is 264,644.

Using Research 2000’s breakdown, we get 360,988 white votes for McCain, 105,288 white votes for Obama, and 55,096 white votes for other. McCain’s margin among white voters is 255,700.

Subtract McCain’s margin among whites from Obama’s margin among blacks and we calculate that Obama has a lead of 8,944 among early votes so far.

That amounts to a lead of 1.08 percent, in a sample that is more than one-third African-American. Once again, like yesterday’s calculations in North Carolina, Obama can ill afford for the voter pool to get much whiter. I have little doubt that excitement over the first African-American major party candidate will boost black turnout above the 25.4 percent level of 2004. But I don’t think it will stay close to 35.6 percent.

10/22 11:29 AM Share