Tuesday, November 04, 2008

HORSERACE

Republicans Kept Pace in Colorado's Early Voting

These results from early voting in Colorado are fascinating.

Out of 1,704,280 "early votes" cast, over 50% of registered voters, the percentage breakdown was:
 
Dem   33.44%  (569,875)
Rep    32.64%  (556,241)
Ind.    24.71%  (421,124)
 
The print edition of this story shows a graphic with the following information:
 
Voting by absentee ballot:
 
Total  1,339,065
 
Rep.   441,841
Dem.  441,203
Ind.   311,196
 
Voting by early voting:
 
Total   365,215
 
Dem.   128,672
Rep.    114,400

If I remember correctly, Republicans traditionally have an advantage in early voting in Colorado, so this isn't unalloyed good news. But I generally concur with the Colorado reader who noticed this that "Republicans held their own in both types of early voting in Colorado despite the unprecedented effort by Democrats to get a jump; only 8/10s of 1 percent difference... which casts doubt on the higher Democrat party ID in recent polls."

The Oct. 30 Marist poll, for example, had Obama leading early voters, 59 to 41. Now, perhaps there are a lot of Obamacans in this state, or perhaps the independents overwhelmingly preferred Obama. But then again, maybe not.

It's possible that most of the voters who show up today are Democrats, and it's possible that the independents prefer Obama. But judging from the party breakdown of early voting, the Democrats have not yet generated any signficant Party ID advantage among the state's electorate as a whole.

11/04 11:29 AMShare