George Mason University's Elections Project has a supurb tally up which updates daily early votings numbers across those states which have already started voting. I am going to cherry-pick their fine work and give some quick commentary on the results which are detailed enough to dissect. Many of them were last updated either yesterday or Thursday.
Colorado (in-person early voting began on 10/21)
Voted so far: 662,340
Democrat: 38.6 percent
Republican: 37.9 percent
Ind/Unaffiliated: 23.5 percent
Absentees: 83 percent
In-person balloting: 17 percent
Registered voters
Total: 3,202,465
Democrat: 1,050,634 (32.8%)
Republican: 1,062,986 (33.2%)
Unaffiliated: 1,069,615 (33.4%)
We made a post on Wednesday on the first days of in-person early voting. So far, the percentages of early voting closely match the state's overall registration numbers. However, we see that most of the votes already cast are from absentee ballots, which is generally a sector of voting that is dominated by Republicans. Given that in-person early voting started on 10/21, we might see Democrats begin to pull away from Republicans in total votes cast. We will have to wait and see.
Florida (in-person early voting began on 10/21)
Voted so far: 1,382,948
Democrat: 43.7 percent
Republican: 41.8 percent
Ind/Unaffiliated: 14.6 percent
Absentee: 53.9 percent
In-person balloting: 46.1 percent
The numbers here are large, and like Colorado, quite close. I think a bit part of this is that majority of the votes cast have been absentees up to this point. Still, it is tight, and it shows that Republicans have been able to keep this close for McCain right now. This is a state to watch closely given its 27 electoral votes up for grabs.
Georgia
Voted so far: 967,210
Male: 41 pecent
Female: 56.1 percent
Other, Unk: 2.9 percent
White: 60.7 percent
Black: 35.4 percent
Other: 2.8 percent
Georgia's early voting has been going on for a bit longer than Colorado or Florida, and unfortunately they do not provide information in terms of party affiliation (Georgia has no party affiliation, and I do not believe that voters have to request a Democratic or Republican ballot).
As we have been saying, the key number here is the black vote, which hit 40 percent of the early totals early on, and now it is a bit over 35 percent, six points above the state's overall black population. It has been tailing very little over the last week, down probably 1-2 points in that period. Still, it stands out above every other piece of data here.
Iowa
Voted so far: 304,316
Democrats: 50.1 percent
Republicans: 28.2 percent
Ind/Other: 21.7 percent
Iowa's early vote total so far is around 65 percent of the total early vote for all of 2004. That's pretty spectacular. Currently, Democrats are enjoying an advantage of nearly 22 percentage points over Republicans in the early voting so far. While it ain't till its over, there was a reason Iowa was taken off of the swing state Electoral College map so early in this general election cycle.
Nevada (in-person early voting began 10/18)
Voted so far: 199,468
Clark County
Voted so far: 160,000
Democrat: 56 percent
Republican: 27.9 percent
Ind/Other: 16.1 percent
Washoe County
Voted so far: 35,563
Democrat: 52.2 percent
Republican: 32.1 percent
Ind/Other: 15.7
I have only broken two counties, Clark and Washoe, because they are biggest counties in this small state, and unquestionably the most important in determining the ultimate winner of Nevada's five electoral votes. Indeed, through Thursday, of the 205,960 votes cast early, 178,435 or 86.6 percent were cast in Clark and Washoe counties. Other counties like Douglas, Elko, Lyon, and Pershing cast just about all the rest, and while they could be important in a tight race, we will just focus on the big two.
President Bush carried Nevada by 51-48 in 2004. John Kerry carried Clark County by just 52-47, while losing every other part of the state. Bush carried key Washoe County by 51-47, or approximately 7,000 votes, which made up about a third of his statewide margin. Washoe is a key county, and one Obama has focused heavily on. It appears that his efforts are paying off, at least early on. If Obama can run up a bigger win in Clark and find a way to win Washoe, he will be very hard to beat in the Silver State. Being up by 29 and 20 points, respectively, after a week of early voting is a good start.
New Mexico
We do not have statewide totals to give you right now, but we do have numbers from the state's most populous county, Bernalillo , the home of Albuquerque. This is generally a huge swing county, whose voters routinely split their tickets and have had a GOP representative in Congress for some time.
Bernalillo County
Voted so far: 75,739
Democrat: 55.7 percent
Republican: 32.4 percent
Ind/Other: 11.9 percent
Absentee: 47.6 percent
In-person balloting: 52.9 percent
Democrats are so far out-numbering GOPers by an astonishing 23.3 percnet so far, with nearly half of those votes being cast via an absentee ballot. Why is this astonishing? As I said, this is a huge swing county which John Kerry won by just 52-47 in 2004, while losing the state by one percent overall, or 6,000 votes. If Kerry had been able to do better here, he could have likely carried the Land of Enchantment.
To get an idea of what this means, I recommend you check out Joe Monahan's blog, probably the best political blogger for the state. While he puzzlingly does not archive stuff on his site or have permanent links for separate stories, there is a lot of good stuff. Of most importance here, he recently commissioned a poll of Bernalillo County and found Obama leading McCain by 55-37 (scroll down to the Wednesday, October 22 post). Paired with the data we see above, Obama is on his way to winning New Mexico by a large margin, in contrast to the two-razor close finishes in the state in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. With Monahan's poll also showing Obama up 48-43 in Dona Ana County, New Mexico's second biggest, it is hard to see him losing here.
North Carolina (poll have been open a week)
Voted so far: 1,090,808
Democrat: 55.2 percent
Republican: 27.8 percent
Ind/Other: 17.0 percent
2004 early vote party break-down
Democrat: 48.6 percent
Republican: 37.4 percent
Ind/Other: 14.1 percent
White: 68.3 percent
Black: 28 percent
Other: 3.8 percent
Absentee: 10 percent
In-person balloting: 90 percent
What was an 11-percent gap between the parties is, at least right now 27.4 percent separating Democratic and Republican early voting. Furthermore, black turnout seems high, as the overall black population in the Tarheel State is around 21-22 percent. So we are seeing a jump of close to eight percent over the statewide number, a bit higher than Georgia so far (though the 35-to-29 comparison in Georgia has been borne out over more early voting, so the gap may shrink a bit here too).
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