Early Voting Shows Surprising Turnout For Democrats

NANCY BENAC AND LIZ SIDOTI | 10/21/10

 

WASHINGTON — Election Day is already over for more than 3 million Americans, and a surprising number of them are Democrats.

Republicans clearly are gaining ground in turning out early voters compared with their showing two years ago, but figures from the first batch of states that offer clues about 2010 early voting patterns still give Democrats an edge in a number of states and big counties.

"If people thought the Democrats were just going to roll over and play dead in this election, that's not what we're seeing," said Michael McDonald, a George Mason University professor who tracks early voting nationally. "They've got to be feeling a little bit better with the numbers that they're seeing."

While it's impossible to tell for whom people are voting, so far more Democrats than Republicans are casting ballots in Iowa, Maryland, North Carolina, Louisiana and Nevada's heavily Democratic Clark County, which supplied two-thirds of the state's voters in 2008.

Republicans are flexing their organizational muscles and leading the pace in Florida, even though Democrats have the edge in registered voters there, and in Colorado. The parties are running about even in Maine. Ohio's early voting trends reflect the state's swing-voting status: Democrats are ahead in the party stronghold of Cuyahoga County around Cleveland, while Republicans lead in GOP territory of Hamilton County, which is home to Cincinnati. Ballots are virtually even in Franklin County, which anchors fickle central Ohio.

With 30 percent or more of all votes likely to be cast early, both sides are going all-out to lock in supporters' ballots early. And for the first time in a midterm election, they're combining traditional shoe-leather canvassing and get-out-the-vote rallies with technological tools like Facebook and text messaging.

Strategies run the gamut: In Washington state, Democrats held a "tweetup" to rein in young early voters. In Illinois, a voter-education group posted a YouTube video about the state's early-voting law highlighting the ability to vote naked – from the comfort of home, please. In Florida, Democrats e-mailed a notice that "Today is Election Day. No, that's not a typo, because every day between now and November 2 is Election Day."

With nearly every indicator in a new Associated Press-G&K poll pointing toward big GOP victories, the Democrats' ground-game advantage is squaring off against the Republicans' enthusiasm edge – and the outcome could determine who wins close races.

Democrats hope they can minimize sweeping coast-to-coast losses with a retooled get-out-the-vote operation that's been tweaked since Barack Obama's groundbreaking 2008 presidential campaign and tested during several special House elections the party recently has won. Republicans, by most accounts, have a less sophisticated program, but they are banking on their loyalists – as well as GOP-leaning independents and disaffected Democrats – turning out in droves simply because they are fired up to vote against the party in power.

Early voting also has been strong in a number of states that don't break down turnout by party. In California, for example, nearly 570,000 ballots have been cast. In Texas, 316,000 have voted, compared with 157,000 at this point in 2006, according to totals from the 15 counties with the largest number of registered voters. In Washington, where virtually everyone casts a mail-in ballot, the state estimates roughly 240,000 have voted.

"This is a phenomenon that's here to stay and it's going to continue to increase in popularity, even in the midterms," McDonald said.

Those looking to read the election tea leaves also keep an eye on which party's voters have submitted the most applications for early ballots.

The Ultimate Political No-Brainer

William Rivers Pitt truthout OpEd

I am beginning to strongly suspect the Democrats in Congress would vastly prefer to lose their majority status come November, rather than continue to carry the apparently onerous burden of being in charge.


The number of alternate explanations for their behavior of late is becoming sparse. Sure, yeah, there are plenty of people who will tell you there isn't a dime's worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans, especially on Capitol Hill. Both parties are beholden, for the most part, to the same corporate paymasters, and so Democrats acting like Republicans is no big surprise.

But the thing is, the Democrats aren't acting like Republicans. Republicans, for all their myriad flaws and faults, always play to win. They go for the throat every time, are not shy about saying or doing whatever is required to win the day, and have a knack for turning a sound bite into a stiletto and jamming it under the fifth rib of whatever opponent happens to present themselves.

When the GOP held majority control for the first six years of the George W. Bush administration - minus that little interregnum that came about when Jeffords woke up on the left side of the bed - they absolutely bulldozed the Democratic minority just about every single time they wanted something passed. You remember, right? There were little pieces of Democrat all over the place after virtually every vote. They were relentless.

Of course, the GOP eventually blew it by 2006, thanks to an avalanche of scandals and the final national realization that a dunderheaded war freak was sitting in the White House. The fact that they lost their majority control, however, didn't change the way they operated. Quite the contrary, as we have seen. They vote en masse even against legislation they approve of if it means beating the Democrats. They roll boulders into the road to thwart everything, and do so with neither shame nor remorse. I disagree with virtually every aspect of Republican philosophy, and my disagreements have gone even deeper since the GOP became the Far-Right-Teabagger-Birther-Taliban-Christian-Nutbag Party, but I will say this: if the Democrats had acted more like Republicans when they were in the minority, there would almost certainly be a lot less dead people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and this country would be a lot less broke.

But they didn't do that, of course, and since gaining the majority in Congress, the Democrats have been as limp and useless as a dead jellyfish, and never more so since Obama took office. The last two years have been agonizing to watch on any number of levels, mostly because these people can't seem to get out of their own way.

They're not acting like Republicans, except when they vote for legislation that serves their dual paymasters, of course, but that's not what I mean. They don't play to win, ever. They don't seem to know how to do it. If you listen closely, you can hear Tip O'Neill spinning wildly in his grave; under no circumstances would that grand old Speaker have tolerated the kind of dishwater spinelessness evinced by this current crop of Democrats.

I really do think they want to get beaten in November, so they can return to the safe, responsibility-free environs of the minority. There are very few other explanations, especially now that they have right in front of them the biggest no-brainer tactical move in the history of the universe: repealing the Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. The issue is a big fat meatball floating right over the plate, and it seems all too evident that these nimrod Democrats are just going to watch it as it sails by.

The numbers on this issue are staggering, and Congressional Democrats have had it explained to them in Technicolor by one of the heaviest pollsters in the game. Stanley Greenberg, of the polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, was invited to speak to members of the Democratic caucus several days ago, and he laid it out as plain as could be.

According to his numbers, only 38 percent of Americans favor keeping the Bush tax cuts for rich people, and if the Democrats vigorously embrace repealing them, they stand to make tremendous gains nationally against the GOP in what looks to be a rough midterm season. After Greenberg was finished, Speaker Pelosi followed up with a plea for the party to dive into this potential boon headfirst.

First of all, it blows my whole mind to think these people actually needed to have such a simple concept explained to them by an expert with bar graphs and pie charts. Beyond that, however, is the staggering fact that, after having the data spoon-fed to them, they still don't seem to have a stomach for the fight.

It would be one thing if they just agreed with the GOP and wanted to keep those tax cuts in place. It would be sickening, but it would make sense. There are some Democrats who do agree, but you'd think a desire to win elections and maintain majority control would trump that, especially given how bleak the prospects are for November.

Junking the Bush rich-folks tax breaks would save hundreds of billions of dollars over the next ten years, which sounds like pretty spiffy fiscal responsibility given our current economic situation. It would maintain tax relief for the middle class, which desperately needs the help. It would be a fork in the eye of the same GOP brigands who passed the damned things in the first place. And it would show the American people that Democrats actually stand for, well, something.

The fact that they actually have to sit down and think this one over tells me more than anything else that Congressional Democrats are either trying to lose, or don't have the stomach to fight for something that will help millions of people, because the GOP might be mean to them.

I really do think they want to lose. If they fail to embrace this issue with both arms, that's exactly what will happen.