Obama Dominating Among Early Voters in Five Swing States

[jefferson_dem]

Obama Dominating Among Early Voters in Five Swing States

SurveyUSA has a lot of good habits as a pollster, and one of them is breaking out the results of early and absentee voting in states where such things are allowed. So far, SurveyUSA has conducted polling in five states where some form of early voting was underway. In each one, Barack Obama is doing profoundly better among early voters than among the state's electorate as a whole:

... Poll % Voted Non-Early
State Date Early Early Voters Likely Voters
====================================================
NM 10/13 10% Obama +23% Obama +6%
OH 10/13 12% Obama +18% Obama +4%
GA 10/12 18% Obama +6% McCain +11%
IA 10/9 14% Obama +34% Obama +10%
NC 10/6 5% Obama +34% McCain +5%

We should caveat that these are not hard-and-fast numbers. Estimates of early voting results are subject to the same statistical vagaries as any other sort of subgroup analysis, such as response bias and small sample sizes.

Nevertheless, Obama is leading by an average of 23 points among early voters in these five states, states which went to George W. Bush by an average of 6.5 points in 2004.

Is this a typical pattern for a Democrat? Actually, it's not. According to a study by Kate Kenski at the University of Arizona, early voters leaned Republican in both 2000 and 2004; with Bush earning 62.2 percent of their votes against Al Gore, and 60.4 percent against John Kerry. In the past, early voters have also tended to be older than the voting population as a whole and more male than the population as a whole, factors which would seem to cut against Obama or most other Democrats.

<SNIP>

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/obama-dominating-among-early-voters-in.html

[tekisui]

1. And, it begins.....

[Coexist]

2. early voting in Florida begins on the 20th!

[mod mom]

3. + 18% in Ohio! Woo Hoo!

:woohoo:

[central scrutinizer]

4. Are the demographics that much different?

between those who vote early and those who don't? I would think that this is the most reliable data we have yet on how the final vote will go. In past elections, early or absentee voting usually leaned to the right, but not differences this large. This is not "registered" voters or even "likely" voters, these are honest-to-God VOTERS who have voted. Not to count chickens before they hatch, but this seems to be more strong evidence of a rout on November 4.

[autorank]

5. Thanks for posting this. Look at NC! k*r

That's consistent with other polls recently. It reflects what wil lhappen on election day.

There's a shot at Georgia too on the eastern seaboard. Wouldn't that be a shock;)