10/27 Update on early voting NC and IA, good news, not great, and possibly great hard numbers. [View all]

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The early voting news is good, not great, and possibly great.

The good news is that with the possible exception of Colorado the Obama campaign is mounting a huge GOTV effort and will almost certainly be going into every swing state with a huge lead. That's the good news.

In North Carolina for example MattTX at DailyKos reports

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/27/1150096/-NC-Early-Voting-Day-9-Yes-Virginia-Obama-Really-Can-Win-North-Carolina


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Early Voting in NC on Thursday and Friday was pretty consistent with the pattern we saw in Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday early voting. 170,215 people voted on Thursday and 173,543 more voted on Friday.

Overall, 1,352,147 people have voted and President Obama has built up an estimated margin of about 117,939 votes.

The not great news is that in 2008 the President was up 170,000 at the same time. It all comes down to one question, "How many early votes are from regular voters and how many are from so called 'sporadic voters'. There is good evidence that Romney's numbers are simply shuffling election day voters to vote earlier while the President's numbers include sizeable numbers of new or sporadic voters.

It will take more days of reporting to know for sure. North Carolina is going to be very very close, but the President will probably head into election day with an advantage and a fair chance to win. This is 'not great' news.

What makes this also 'possibly great news' is that Romney has to turn a whole bunch of states from bue to red. Give him Indiana, and after that the going gets tough. If Romney does win North Carolina but only by the narrowest of margins it is logical to conclude that Romney isn't going to have enough momentum in other states where Obama's margin was larger than the 14,000 in NC to overturn them.

North Carolina is going to be very very close and Romney really needs a big win in NC not a cliff hanger if he's also going to be taking any other 2008 Obama states to the Republican side.

Nevad also is showing very good numbers as reported by fightingregistrar at DailyKos

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/26/1150455/-Nevada-Early-Voting-Update-10-25-12

In the previous daily report, Democrats bested Republicans by 5,202 ballots cast. In this one, Democrats outstripped Republicans by 5,535. In fact, the Republican percentage went down among early voters since the previous report. These are very solid numbers for us in Clark County, especially considering that Romney is contesting Nevada much more vigorously than McCain did four years ago.

Now, here are the cumulative figures, including mail-in ballots:

Dems 105,338 (49.75%)
Reps 69,294 (32.73%)
Inds 37,107 (17.52%)

TOTAL 211,739

As of this report, 24.86% of the 851,803 active voters in Clark County have voted. That is huge. At this point in 2008, about 17% of all active voters had voted.

(Washoe County, the other large county is basically split exactly even. The two counties account for 90% of the vote. A sizeable win in Clark County determines the state results)

Other notes from McDonald at George Mason

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-p-mcdonald/early-voting-mesmerizing_b_2027200.html


Iowa, 400,000 absentee and early votes, 44% Dems, 30% Rep.

Florida 1.1 million cast with Republicans 45 to Dems 40%, but and this is a big but, in Florida Republicans normally have a 12 point advantage in early/absentee voting and Dems make it up on election day.