Early Voting Numbers Continue To Astound

This is the first week of early voting in the city of Racine. Turn-out is not just higher than for the last midterm (2014), but higher than for the 2016 presidential election. District-wide, Democratic parts of Wisconsin's first district-- like Janesville and Kenosha as well as Racine-- are over 2016 levels, while Republican areas-- Waukesha, for example-- are lagging. This is good news for Randy Bryce and for statewide Democrats Tammy Baldwin and Tony Evers.

Yesterday, NBC reported that midterm voter enthusiasm, nationally, is reaching the same kind of historic levels that it its in WI-01. Dante Chinni and Sally Bronston wrote that for all the uncertainty pundits and journalists may be seeing regarding the outcome, "one thing seems clear: A lot of people are going to go to be voting. From poll data to actual early ballots, the signs point to 2018 as a blockbuster midterm in terms of turnout. Last week’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal showed truly notable numbers for the percentage of voters who are highly interested in the election.

Overall, 65 percent of those surveyed said they had high interest in this midterm election. That figure is higher than any number seen recently. The closest election was 2006, when 61 percent said they were highly interested in that midterm. Furthermore, the trend in the data holds true for a wide range of demographic groups from women to Democrats and Republicans to white, African–American and Hispanic voters.

Beyond the polls, there’s more concrete evidence that voters are revved up for November. Looking at early ballots that have already been cast, the number two weeks out was actually ahead of where they were in 2016. More than 8.1 million people have already voted in 2018, according to data from TargetSmart. Two weeks before Election Day in 2016, the figure was 7.9 million.

...Georgia, Tennessee and Texas have each seen an increase of more than 500,000 early votes compared to the same point in the 2014 election. In each of those states the early 2018 vote has more than doubled compared to the same point in 2014, according to TargetSmart data.

And the ballot in all of those states this year looks similar to 2014-- they each have a Senate and gubernatorial race this year just as they did in 2014.

Arizona, Florida and Nevada, three other states with important Senate races this year that didn’t have one in 2014, are also seeing big boosts in their early vote-- all double-digits in terms of percentages.

...Whatever happens when everything is tallied, whoever wins and loses, it will be difficult for anyone to cite voter apathy as a cause. These numbers show an electorate that is involved in the 2018 election and ready to show it at the ballot box. This is what an engaged citizenry looks like.

Kendra Fershee probably has the steeped path to victory of any of the candidates we've endorsed. Her district's PVI is R+19 and Trump crushed Hillary there 68-26%. But... Bernie not only beat Hillary in the district on primary day, in many of the district's 20 counties he also beat Trump! Take Monongalia County: Bernie 8,096; Trump 5,971. Or Wetzel : Bernie 1,744; Trump 1,096. And Marion: 5,324; Trump: 4,035. Kendra is not running the kind of Republican-lite campaign the DCCC prefers to lose with. She's running on progressive populist issues that appeal to voters in northern West Virginia. "Our voter turnout appears to be up significantly," she told me today, "with Dems outnumbering Republicans by a 55-45 margin (that data specificity is limited to day 1 of early voting). As compared to other midterm general elections, my home county appears to have already exceeded, after four days of early voting, the average number of votes for the entire ten days of early voting."

Way up in the northwest corner of California sits one of the reddest pockets in the state, CA-01, where progressive champion Audrey Denney is challenging Trump rubber stamp, Doug LaMalfa. She told me yesterday that her staff had dug into the PDI data late last week and saw that the district had one of the highest-- or the highest-- rate of Latino and millennial returned ballots anywhere in the state.

According to the Texas Tribune "As of day five of early voting, 2,146,117 Texans have cast in-person ballots and 280,444 have cast mail-in ballots in the 30 counties where most registered voters in the state-- 78 percent-- live. That preliminary turnout has surpassed the total votes cast in those counties during the entire two-week early voting period in the last midterm election in 2014. So far this year, 19.8 percent of the 12.3 million registered voters in those 30 counties have voted."

Let's look at Dallas County, which has turned very blue in recent years. Two years ago Hillary eviscerated Trump there-- 458,845 (61.1%) to 261,865 (34.9%). The higher than normal early voter turnout is headed towards beating the 2016 presidential year, which augers very well for Beto and is likely going to see Colin Allred replace Pete Sessions in Congress-- and if not for the sheer incompetence of the DCCC would see Democrats in serious contention against Kenny Marchant and for the open 5th district Hensarling seat.

Dayna Steele's campaign manager, Mitch Zaiman, told me that the turn-out in TX-36, east of Houston, "has been extremely high. Early voting and vote by mail totals have surpassed '14 totals. While several counties have reporting delays, we currently have '85,516 voted' reported, putting us well above 2014 totals. District wide turnout is at 19.3% with nearly a week left to go until the end of early voting. Harris County itself is at 20% turnout through yesterday. The electorate has been exceedingly white and senior citizens so far but this keeps with previous trends. Yesterday, the first weekend of early voting did see more younger voters and people color turnout out as expected."



"Sustained turnout at these levels," he continued, "would be extremely positive for the campaign and Dems in general. There have been no indications of turnout dropping of yet. The question is whether these are voters who would have voted on election day regardless or if early voting allowed them to vote when they otherwise would not have. My guess is that the older, white voters would have voted anyway and that some people of color who are turning out on the weekends are taking advantage of early voting to cast a vote they might have otherwise missed. If this is the case, a relatively small percentage of crossover vote among traditional GOP voters would be enough to push us across the edge and win. If we see these levels of turnout continue through early voting and, if turnout on election day is 40-50% of the total vote, then we will have achieved the turnout to win. None of this is far outside the norm nationally but has never been seen in this district. Assuming all these things happen and trends from previous elections are not skewed we can win in a remarkably red district."

The DCCC-- and therefor the pundits and journalists who take stenography from them-- wrote off Texas' 10th district even before the primary. But because the DCCC wasn't paying attention, a full-on reformer and progressive, Mike Siegel, won (with 70% of the vote) and has turned the gerrymandered district competitive. Early voting has been eye-popping. 80% of the voters live in Harris and Travis counties and there is record turnout for a midterm already-- with more women (52-48%) voting than men and unexpectedly big numbers for millennials. Contrary to past elections, there have been more voters in the Travis County parts of the district (Austin) than in the Harris County parts. Travis is bluer and Harris has a vote suppressing Republican county clerk who closes the earlier voting polls at 4:30, before most people get out of work, while Travis county is open 'til 7pm. Travis County has now registered 94.5% of eligible voters, something I've never heard of in my life. A quarter of all registered voters have already cast their ballots after just a week of early voting! Meanwhile, Mike has huge field operations not just in Travis and Harris counties, but also in Bastrop County and in Waller County, where standing up to local voter suppression and racism-- and two nights on Maddow-- have made him a hero in a traditionally red county. And, of course, one statewide Texas race seems to be helping every Democrat running down-ballot: