She's way off on Ohio, though - her analysis relies on voting by precinct, but what she misses is that the 2008 precincts were all changed after redistricting in 2010 - they are not comparable. Counties, however are exactly the same, and counties that McCain carried are turning out in the early vote at higher rates than those Obama won.
Obama won Ohio by roughly 260,000 votes in 2008, but his advantage there is only about 15,000 now. If we turnout our Election Day vote (and we will!), Romney wins 51-49.
The big rally in Ohio tonight should help too.
I’m in Texas so of course I won’t be there.
Question for you though.
How does the political landscape look now compared to 2004?
That’s what has me curious.
And I’m not talking numbers but mood, yard signs, crowd sizes etc.
Drove past the early voting location, the county annex, at about 3 pm yesterday and there were more than a hundred folks in line outside of the building. I am not sure how long the line was inside the building, but there is a rather large atrium. The people in line were about 95% white. In 2008, the early voting lines were also outside the door, but the line was 95% black.
I don't know who the white folk voted for, but by polling numbers, 90%+ of blacks are likely to vote for Obama. So a much smaller early voting turnout of black voters would be bad for Obama and good for America.
What’s the ground game like out there? I know that in Tidewater VA we will be knocking on every known Republicqan door between now and Tuesday and the phones will be working overtime. It’s amazing how many people, of all ages are turning out to knock on doors. I’ve never seen a GOTV effort that’s this well organized. Very impressive.
But Geraghty also found that the Ds were cannibalizing their "high propensity voters" (just as they are here in OH) to vote early, skewing the early voting numbers. In other words, looks like we should get a win in IA.
Tony - Have you looked at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Absentee Labels spreadsheets? I may be wrong, but they seem to pick up both absentee and early voting results.
The 2008 file appears to show that in 2008 about 34,000 Republicans voted absentee or early in Cuyahoga County. If I read it correctly, the current file for 2012 shows that about 41,000 Republicans have voted early or absentee in Cuyahoga County so far for the 2012 election. While this is good news, it may need to be taken with a grain of salt because there may be “Republicans” supporting Josh Mandel in Cuyahoga County that will not vote for Romney or other Republicans. In any event, it is good news if the combination of Cuyahoga County’s total early and absentee voting is apparently lagging the pace from 2008 and Republican numbers apparently are already ahead of their total 2008 early and absentee vote count.
Solid turnout on election day can send President Obama back to Hawaii.