The first votes have been cast in the election

Independents in PA according to most recent polls:

New York Times/Siena: +1 Trump
Atlas Intel: +13 Trump
Rasmussen: +7 Trump

Pretty much every poll within the last 2 to 3 weeks out of PA shows Trump ahead with independents there. The NYT/Siena poll is the best recent outlier for Kamala and Trump still leads indies by 1 in it. I'd say the true number is probably 7 or 8 points. Atlas is very good in their polling and all the other polls show him leading this category as well.

Cross-Tabs: October 2024 Times/Inquirer/Siena Poll of the Likely Electorate in Pennsylvania
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2024/Atlas-Poll-US-Swing-States-Oct-17-Pennsylvania.pdf
Election 2024: Trump Now +3 in Pennsylvania

 

I voted today... please tell the TV stations they can quit spamming me with ads now. lol

 

I like this feed. Do the math. GOP have been returning a higher percentage of outstanding ballots in PA for over a week now. But let's just say for the sake of discussion, each party returns 80% of what's left of their outstanding ballots. (that's a lofty target). Dems would not have a +500,000 vote firewall in that scenario. GOP run of late in PA still has room to run based on amount of ballots still outstanding in proportion to what was sent out. The Dems probably make it to a +400,000 net firewall here, but they're not going to get anywhere near +500,000.

 

Ask yourself before you post any polling if it is one of the flood of right wing ones created just to spam the averages. Then ask yourself why they feel the need to spam the averages. Rasmussen, Trafalgar, etc.

CNBC Generation Lab shows young voters are breaking 60/40 for Harris in the last 2 weeks. This is the same margin Biden got in 2020. It was 46-34 Harris in July.

 

So Tim Walz is doing an event in Kentucky and Harris is doing one in Houston.

You should ask yourself what their internal polling is showing if they feel free enough to take time out of the swing states for those events.

 

Latest mail in stats in from PA from this morning. As you can see, the trend I spoke of continues to grow in velocity. Dems gain of just 11.9% more ballots than yesterday's total. GOP gain of 18.3% more ballots than yesterday's total. Dems mail in ballot advantage over GOP stands at +348,198 as of today. Voting registration ended in PA yesterday.

Dems have 430,666 (52.6% of) ballots still floating out there. GOP have 260,772 (31.9% of). Independents/others have 126,972 (15.5% of) ballots left outstanding. These numbers along with the trend that has held for the past week and a half (and keeps gaining momentum at almost 2-to-1 for GOP now) are important , because Dem ballots sent out were 57.7% of all ballots, GOP was 30.0% and other was 12.3%. Meaning, the GOP still has room to run, as do independents/others. Dems have a much smaller pool left of potential ballot returns. In fact, based on the current trend, I would not be surprised to see a few days next week with GOP actually adding more total ballots than Dems in the daily reports.

I would not be a bit surprised to see the Dems miss the original +400,000 firewall after it's all said and done.

 

To illustrate this problem for Dems in PA a little further. If we look the data from last Wednesday (since Monday was a holiday), the Dems added 16.0% to their total ballot returns on Oct 15th. GOP added 21.8% to their total ballot returns on Oct 15th. As you can see, total % gain returns are diminishing for both parties, but at a much faster pace for Dems than GOP. This just makes sense as the less outstanding ballots remaining, the lower the numbers will add up for both sides. Making a +400,000 Dem advantage not an easy achievement for the Dems to maintain. No chance they are getting anywhere near +500,000.

 

Just looking at percentage returned isn't a good number to look at. The Ds have a lot more outstanding ballots out there in PA. And Ds could return just 50% of the outstanding ballots, and Rs 60%, and that would give the Ds the 400k cushion plus, because it would mean 59k more D returned ballots.

We also don't know two other things. How the Independents are breaking, and two, how many moderates are crossing over and not voting party at the top of the ticket. Just because someone is a R doesn't mean they are automatically voting Trump. There's good reason why Harris was in PA yesterday with Liz Cheney.

 

Missing the point. If their internals showed for instance that they were down in Michigan, they'd be hitting it hard and not taking time out for these kind of things.

The Houston stop is to support Allred against Cruz, btw.

 

UF Election Lab site has really good election info along with 2020 and 2016 data plus 2022.

You cant takeaway too much because 2020 was a covid year and the GOP used to discourage early voting and is now encouraging voting earlier since they were dumb about it before but some takeaways:

• Georgia has almost 200k more women early voters than men and black voters are a whopping 27% of the early vote - in fact, all women + black men make up nearly 70% of the voters in GA - cant tell by party.
• Florida has seen slightly more GOP early voters 680K vs 662K but provides no demographics
• North Carolina has about 130k more women voting than men and 20K more Dems than Pubs. Women plus black men are about 61% of the voters in NC
• Arizona you have to click into the Arizona link to get the most updated information and the GOP has outvoted the Dems so far 215K to 181K and there isnt much of a gender gap and so far leans very old
• Pennsylvania is very lopsided with 578K Dems and 254K GOP early voters - why arent they voting early there for the GOP?
• For the states that report age I dont notice any shift towards more youth voting, looks less to me for early voters.
• For the states that report gender there is a noticeable gap towards women voters but honestly there was in 2020 too so hard to see if there are more.

All in all early voting wont give you much info because when people vote isnt indicative of if they will vote.

 

I dont think the early voting affects the fact that Dems need more NPAs and pubs crossing over... the math is the math as you point out - unless Pub turnout is an issue.

 

Good video about current early vote, if early voting cannibalizes your Election Day vote, and late early voting. Worth a watch.

 

Anecdotal evidence for sure, but Harris door knockers in PA are reporting that a lot of her voters plan on voting on eday and not by mail this year to avoid being part of the BS narrative about middle of the night vote dumps of VBM ballots.

 

Trend noted in PA continues as I expected. Today's numbers:
Pennsylvania Mail and absentee voting update Total: 1,123,509 (+71,854 since Oct 22)
Democratic 60.9% | 684,724 votes (+35,664)
Republican 29.2% | 328,074 votes (+27,212)
Other 9.9% | 110,711 votes (+8,978)

Dems only added +8,452 ballots to their firewall advantage. Now at +356,650. Curious how soon we'll see the GOP eat into the firewall. Perhaps by the end of this week. Not convinced Dems will hold +350,000, let alone +500,000. According to the Pennsylvania Election Returns' website, in 2020 Biden received 1,995,691 mail-in votes to Trump's 595,538. Let that sink in a moment....


Biden's 2020 2M Mail-In Pennsylvania Votes Now 'Unconstitutional'

 

People seem to forget the pandemic was still a thing in 2022 too, I would assume a lot more people vote early in person or on Eday just because there is no safety concern anymore. Anyone looking for patterns vs. the last 2 elections is playing a fools game IMO.

 

You need to look at early ballot requests. The return rate is better by democrats so far. In 2020 due to covid there were 3M requests. Only 2M this year. So the advange wont be nearly as high.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

 

You know it's going to continue to slow for Dems in PA, because statewide, Dems have returned 62.7% of mail in ballots that were sent out. But in Philadelphia County (highest number of registered Dems statewide), Dems have returned 73.2% of the ballots sent out to that county. The well is running dry for them in Philly. Similar numbers in Allegheny County at 65.0% returned. Not as bad as Philly, but still above statewide averages. Also indicative that there isn't a massive backlog of Dem ballots in these densely populated areas. Trend will continue until GOP are netting more ballots daily.