The unanswered QUESTION...
How many DEMOCRATS voted REPUBLICAN?
How many Republicans voted Democrat?
“The unanswered QUESTION...
How many DEMOCRATS voted REPUBLICAN?”
Actually that’s one of two unanswered questions. The second question is the one we don’t want to ask. It’s the easiest approach to just assume that they cancel each other out and that independents split evenly. The easiest approach is not always the most accurate, however.
As to another built-in assumption regarding the pre-election day vote in states like FL & NC which are so closely monitored, which is that election day turnout will massively favor Republicans as it purportedly has done in other years:
We heard a lot about Democrats “cannibalizing” while voting by mail — meaning that they are simply using up votes which would otherwise have been cast later and therefore are really gaining nothing in the end — yet there is silence about how REPUBLICANS via in-person early voting (and to some degree by mail) are “cannibalizing” their election day vote.
If true, might that not cause the election-night-Republican-landslide! to be weaker sauce than needed?
And how many Republicans voted Democrat. That's why it's only counting the votes that matters.