I assume that the HRC folks will know A LOT more about where things stand with respect to early voting across the 37 states and most importantly from critical swing states by tonight, tomorrow night and Monday night.

For those folks who are crunching numbers and putting out information into the twitter-sphere, what will we DU'ers likely know about trends. We already know the NV seems locked up for Hillary and Florida is trending our way. What I would like to know is what else do we know about Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Arizona...and other states.

I'm feeling relatively confident, but of course there are still those wonky polls out there and 538 out there that make us all frustrated and maybe a little nervous too.

Robby Mook is looking at the early voting numbers and sees record turnout, great early voting numbers for us, and a new coalition has emerged.

A Shudder Goes Down Republican Spines As Early Voting Reveals A New Clinton Coalition

n a conference call with reporters, Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook announced an early voting turnout record. At least 40% of voters in battleground states are turning out early.

In Florida, more registered Democrats than Republicans have turned out to vote early or by mail. The Clinton camp believes that they are winning Florida by 170,000 ballots.

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The word of the day is "firewall." My friends, can you say "firewall"?

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http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/5/1591565/-Robby-Mook-NEW-Coalition-We-are-up-in-FL-by-170k-Latino-vote-increased-130-AA-turnout-up-22

Tim Kaine’s former roommate (Charles Hirschhorn) took to Facebook to offer some fascinating background on our next Vice President:

Full Disclosure: My Roommate is Running for VP

Thirty-five years ago I shared a 4 bedroom rental house with two law students. I was working as an Assistant Movie Theater Manager in Boston, being paid $150 a week, which I believe was the federally mandated minimum salary you could pay someone and not have to pay them overtime. Anyway, the open bedroom in the attic was being held for a student returning from a year as a missionary in Honduras. I did not know him when he moved in, but now we all know him as the Democratic Candidate for Vice President, Tim Kaine.

Tim and I lived together that year and the following summer in Washington, DC. A wise man once told me that he and his roommate had an understanding: “As soon as one of us dies, the other will go out and get hit by a bus, because some secrets have to remain buried…” I feel the opposite. Eventually the media will find me, so I figured I’ll go ahead and offer a full disclosure of what I know about Tim. Here goes:

He does not like to clean the bathroom.

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http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/4/1591265/--He-s-the-best-person-I-have-ever-met

Great comic relief...lots of "f" bombs.

http://occupydemocrats.com/2016/11/04/celebrities-just-made-anti-trump-video-ages/

I haven't seen this before.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/4/1591390/-Astonishing-new-commercial-for-Hillary

This article isn’t just about one poll.

In fact it’s about more and more evidence I’ve found that has led me to believe we might be on the verge of some major earthquakes when it comes to actual voter behavior.

Still, let’s start with the crazy new Florida poll and then work are way out from there…

Last night, I wrote an article about a brand new bombshell Florida poll from TargetSmart, that showed Hillary Clinton up 8, and, more shockingly, Republican early voters breaking her way 28% of the time.

Needless to say, this was an eye-popping poll that made many of us sit up and take notice (some of us more skeptically than others).

But I’ve been very curious ever since. Digging a bit more into TargetSmart, I’m quite convinced now that they’re a highly respected operation and are focused on cutting edge work that cannot be easily dismissed simply because they have a poll that looks to be an outlier.

What makes me say that we can be confident about TargetSmart’s bonafides?

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http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/2/1590420/-More-Evidence-That-Hillary-Is-Up-Big-in-Florida

and a bunch of us holding our nose everytime we take a peek at Nate 538 -- I want hear all I can about:

early voting where you live...anecdotes, stories, informal and formal polling. I am particularly interested in hearing how it is going in any of swing states, including Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina, Nevada and Texas!

Let's keep posting on all the good work that is going out there!

I know some folks are worrying, so this will be welcome news.

Folks in Florida are slowly, but surely, getting out to vote. We still have work to do, but this is great news from Steve Schale for Hillary and Team D!

Keep working. Keep making calls! If we do, we will win Florida and this election!


Steve Schale @steveschale
Through Mon's votes, share of the FL electorate that is black (African American & Hispanic) is now 11.7%, and growing. 1/
2:44 PM - 1 Nov 2016
71 71 Retweets 119 119 likes
1h
Steve Schale @steveschale
Through Mon's votes, share of the FL electorate that is black (African American & Hispanic) is now 11.7%, and growing. 1/
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Steve Schale @steveschale
African American share was like 8 when in-person early voting started. 2/
2:45 PM - 1 Nov 2016


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http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/1/1589754/-Great-News-Florida-is-now-starting-to-see-a-surge-of-African-American-and-Hispanic-early-voters

As Laura Clawson noted earlier The New York Times spent some pixels speculating on the early vote, including this snippet: "there were signs of weakness over the weekend, especially among African-Americans in North Carolina, where the turnout as of Saturday night showed that they had not voted at their 2012 levels so far," eventually followed by "because the state significantly curtailed early voting." Yeah, they did. And critical follow-up from Bill Busa shows just what's going on here.

In the 58 counties that have been plagued by neither flooding nor locked polling place doors (Unimpaired Counties) African Americans are voting at 91% of their 2012 rate—not great, but a definite improvement over the statewide rate of just 82%. By contrast, among the 32 counties for which federal disaster declarations are in effect, that rate drops substantially to just 79%. But the man-made disaster of voter suppression proves to be the most potent force of all, depressing the African American voting rate to a mere 72% of 2012’s performance. Interestingly, flooding and voter suppression aren’t additive: among the 7 counties doubly cursed by both, voting action is again 72%. Actually, that makes sense: if there’s no open polling place within a reasonable distance, it hardly matters whether or not a voter is surrounded by water. […]
The take-home lesson here is that Mother Nature hath no fury like a Republican pol scorned: while flooding of biblical proportions certainly hasn’t helped voter turnout, this year voter suppression appears to substantially outstrip Hurricane Matthew as a force depressing North Carolina’s African American vote. Of course, it still must be explained why black voting is also slightly down in the state’s unimpaired counties, and here a variety of factors are no doubt at play, ranging from mild voter disengagement to forms of voter suppression more subtle than locked polling place doors.

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http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/31/1589229/-Early-voting-is-down-among-black-North-Carolinians-because-Republicans-designed-it-that-way#read-more