Early Voting in Swing States at Odds With Polls and Reportedly Not Delivering for Biden
“The Republican Party is keeping pace in mail-in and early voting in three key swing states despite polls showing early voting should clearly favor Joe Biden.”
Joe Biden is leading in many of the polls, and just like in 2016, the media is all too happy to repeat this news over and over. On the ground, however, something very different is happening.
Early voting, which we have been told is supposed to favor Joe Biden, is not delivering for him, even in key states like Michigan and Wisconsin.
Michael Lee reports at the Washington Examiner:
Early voting data in battleground states shows Trump outpacing national polls giving Biden an edge
The Republican Party is keeping pace in mail-in and early voting in three key swing states despite polls showing early voting should clearly favor Joe Biden.
Data out of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio indicates that registered Republicans are returning ballots at about the same rate as registered Democrats in the battleground states.
In Michigan as of Wednesday, just over 1 million ballots have been returned, 40% from registered Democrats, with the same from registered Republicans. In Wisconsin, 40% of the 711,855 returned ballots have been from Democrats, while 38% have come from Republicans. The GOP actually leads in Ohio, with 45% of 475,259 early ballot returns coming from Republicans, compared to 43% from registered Democrats. The preliminary data matches up with the requests by party affiliation for mail-in ballots.
The data contradicts national polls showing Biden supporters overwhelmingly plan to vote by mail or early in person. According to a Pew Research poll released Friday, 55% of voters who plan to cast their ballot in person before Election Day support Biden, compared to 40% who support President Trump.
For a few weeks now, there has been a massive divide between what the polls say and what you can see happening on the ground. Every poll shows Biden leading, yet public support for Trump remains huge and enthusiastic.
One other thing that’s not showing up in the polls and that’s favoring Trump is voter registration.
Jonathan Garber writes at the FOX Business Network:
Voter-registration patterns give Trump an edge invisible to polls: JPMorgan
The 2020 presidential race may be closer than the polls suggest, according to an analysis of voter registration trends by JPMorgan Chase.
Changes in the number of voters registered to each of the major parties have proven to be a significant variable in election outcomes in the past, according to strategists at the New York-based bank, which analyzed trends in some of the battleground states that will be crucial to an electoral college victory.
Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Trump by 9.2 points nationally, according to an average of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics, but his lead is at a tighter 4.9 points in hotly contested states…
In Pennsylvania, for example, a blue-leaning state that Trump won by 44,292 votes in 2016, the Republican Party has since picked up nearly 200,000 voters.
JPMorgan says the gains suggest Trump could win the state by a margin of more than 240,000 in the upcoming election.
Similar progress in battlegrounds Florida and North Carolina suggest Trump may take those states by a larger margin than in his first campaign as well.
Trump supporters can’t take anything for granted, but this news is encouraging.
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Comments
I’m guessing that most of us are waiting for the polls to open to vote in person and I doubt there is anywhere near the same enthusiasm for this to be happening for Biden. And then there is the collapse (backfiring?) of the Hillary post-election day plan of unending chaos over never-ending counting of mail-in votes. Here in CA, the Dems are already up in arms over Republican vote harvesting.
It just doesn’t seem to be going the Dems’ way no matter where you look.
Yeah, it appears sad for them.
Were I the one picking the ticket, I would have run Sanders or Gabbard.
Gabbard seemingly the Sanest of the asylum, and Sanders already having what appeared to be a fairly certain opportunity stolen right out from under him.
Hence my theory..
But I believe we are in for a storm with the mail balloting fiasco.
A hanging chad wouldn’t stand a chance.
Sweet Revenge…..
Joe Biden’s polling lead slips in wake of Post report on Hunter
https://nypost.com/2020/10/17/joe-bidens-polling-lead-slips-in-wake-of-post-report-on-hunter/
I believe the best chance they have now is for Joe to hole-up and punt the ball from here.
But the voters are Lucy, holding the football…
Don’t you mean, continue to hole up and continue to punt?
Yes, but to very loosely paraphrase, never feel confident against anyone who prints ballots by the barrel.
Dems asked for this, begged for this, demanded this, with their disreputable conduct. Trump high jacked the republican party, Marxists hijacked the Democrat party.
Turns out that republicans got the better deal,and America got the best deal.
By a mile.
And so far as the Establishment Republicans, I will never forget how they did everything in their power to pull Trump down.
Two little anecdotes … My wife says that she is voting against what the Dems, Progressives, AntiFa and BLM have done as much as for Trump; and my daughter, in her thirties, paid attention this time and has gone from liberal to conservative and a fan of Tucker Carlson.
My conspiracy theory holds that the D.N.C. decided early on to take a pass on the Presidency this time around in light of the current mess, realizing that they can so handily construct a compilation of second guessing after the facts, and make hay in 2024.
Thus, their fitting selection of a guaranteed losing ticket.
…. Well… I realize.. there are no guarantees..
I think there is a civil war going on within the Democrat party between the commies who are entrenched in the House (Soros/Bernies) and the “moderates” who have lost control. They didn’t present a keynote speaker at the DNC opting instead to showcase the new, young commies. They even allowed the NeverTrumpers to speak. It’s the Obama crowd vs the Bernies vs the NeverTrumpers fighting for control.
Just wait and see what happens to AOC proxy Pelosi after the election, win or lose. The Dems want her out as much as the Reps. We could soon see a collapse of the party entirely.
Well, that plays in to the only possibe sane reason that they may have had to put Biden on the ticket.
He’s the closest thing left to a Democrat that they have left.
Plus with Kamala, they have their absolute dream all lined up and readdy to drop in as soon as Biden is out of the way.
Of course, looking at the Bidens, they dug themselves all the way to China, and it’s anyones guess if he can even hold out until Election day.
Fortunately for them, Biden has the Covid excuse to stay in the basement a couple weeks with Kamala contributing her staff…
12 Business days, it’s hard to believe any legal challenge could possibly be successfully brought against him in that period of time.
Looking at how Dems have operated over the past four and more years, I don’t think they are rational or smart enough to to think that far ahead.
I don’t think they did. Instead, this election shows their deep desperation. Dozens of candidates and the best they could come up with was Joe Biden. They’ve spent so many decades kissing up to the extreme left that all they could do was pick the one candidate (besides Gabbard) who didn’t come across as a socialist whackjob. The fact that he’s senile and corrupt didn’t bother them, since they thought they could drag his moldering carcass across the finish line and install his veep.
Karmala Harris is just as bad as Hillary.
Just not nearly as bright.
My thoughts early on. Take a pass on an election they had no chance of winning. Why waste a good candidate?
My wife and I are taking a trip to NC for our anniversary. We will be gone on Nov 3rd. Early voting opens on Monday. We will be crawling over the broken dreams of demonrats to get to the Supervisor of Elections office Monday morning.
I sure hope you are right.
But the Democrats are stacking the deck right out in the light of day.
In NC the Biden supporters are making a concerted effort to take down Trump Signs. O the 30 I put up, all were gone within a week. Nevertheless Trump rallies are being held every day, around Raleigh. Wake County is heavily Democratic, but I wear my Trump shirts every where and all I get is “I like the shirt”.
Same people who would be complaining on social media, complete with Ring video footage (if available) if someone took a Biden sign off their front lawn.
BTW, my daily running routes cover over 20 miles of streets in Pasadena and San Marino. I have seen a total of 5 Biden signs and 2 Trump signs so far. Normally, the neighborhoods would have been plastered with Hillary or Obama or even Bernie signs with nary a Republican sign. Seems like a bad omen for the Democrats.
It would be interesting to know how many Dems show up to vote for local candidates and propositions but leave the President choice blank. Or vote for Trump.
If you can read polls you know those were to shape public opinion not reflect it.
I know what must have happened. Bill Kristol must have declared Peak Trump again.
Utah is so solidly Red that almost no one ever puts up signs for the R presidential candidate. Governor, House, Senate… local races – I see those all the time. And in my solidly red county, I will sometimes see D signs, rainbow flags, BLM signs (usually near campus or in the older neighborhoods where families are unlikely to live cuz the houses are too small). Almost never the R presidential signs; I always see more D presidential signs and bumper stickers around town – probably to show they are different from the others, invite questions, I dunno.
This year is different. I see Trump flags, stickers, signs. They are everywhere. In this solidly Red county of a solidly Red state, people are actually excited to vote for the R candidate, and are not afraid of letting it be known. What Utah does this year will not surprise anyone – 5 electors for the R candidate, but what surprises me is the enthusiasm I see.
oh, and in. the local races – the Dems are not advertising their party. Just their name, office sought, and why to vote for them. But they are hiding their party identification on signs and radio ads. Make of that what you will.
Gosh… you have to have some thoughts on Romney.
Is it just because he pulled Salt Lake’s fat out of the fryer on the Olympics that he was elected?
I called him a Carpetbagger to his face at a state delegate meeting. To say he was not pleased…. understatement.
His cousin of some sort removed, Marion G. Romney, was an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Very well liked and revered. He is still quoted in lessons and talks. Anyone my age (40s) and older remember his name well.
My thought – Mitt traded on both his Olympics experience (his response to me when I called him a carpetbagger “do you remember the Olympics?” like a 12-month job somewhere is residency) AND the reverence for his apostle cousin’s name.
Also, after the caucus system ousted Senator Bob Bennett in 2010, the state GOPe started to change the rules so that they could not be controlled by the will of the people. So when the Party chose Mitt, there was very little the people could do to stop him.
Thanks, that shows a major component I was completely Un-aware of.
I suspected you had local insight.
That is what the state GOP has done everywhere.
“The peasants are revolting!”
Early voting began on Thursday here in NC. I waited for about 30 minutes to vote. Line was out the door. My wife tried to vote Friday twice, and both times the lines were too long, so she’ll try again beginning Monday. Total votes in the 2016 Presidential election in our county were just over 17,000. I arrived about 2 1/2 hours after voting had begun and my ballot was #275. So, in 150 minutes, we had already racked up 1.6% of the vote total from 2016. (We only have two sites to early vote in this county, the other is tiny.) I’d say voting will be robust in our little corner of NC.
Good to hear your “wife tried to vote Friday twice”. We have to keep up with the Dem efforts to do the same. (Ha, ha!)
I am a bit concerned that polling places on 11/3 will not be adequately staffed for Covid delays and Republicans will lose relatively more votes from people not willing to wait around for hours. Alternatively, even though relatively fewer Dems may show up, their lack of enthusiasm for Biden might mean a higher percentage of them will not wait hours on line. Hiding in his basement does not encourage long waits to vote for him.
The Washington Examiner story has been cited several times on conservative blogs, so I’ll make the same comment here I made in those places:
I’m glad to read about such good news for the GOP and hope it lasts beyond 11/3, but I am suspicious of reports about “registered” Republicans outvoting “registered” Democrats in early balloting in Michigan and Wisconsin. Neither of those states have closed primaries with voter registration by party, so how would anyone know? Perhaps the Examiner can provide more detail?
I wonder what other for sure claims abou this election won’t quite pan out as we’ve been told?
Now remember, this is a three part election.
The Electoral College Vote, then the popular vote and then the legal challenge over the mail-in ballots.
Thing I can’t understand is why they are placing all the attention on the popular vote unless that intend to challenge the Electoral College.
And they have been chipping away at that for quite a while.
I’m starting to think the only accurate poll is the stock market. The minute that Trump really is in danger of losing the election, the bottom will fall out of it, and so far, it has stayed up pretty well.
My worry is if more of the Pub registrants are NeverTrumpers, versus any Donk blue-collar Trump voter going early. Registration=/=Vote, necessarily.
Also, don’t lose sight of the down-ticket. We can’t afford to lose anything there and must try to win back what we lost.
NeverTrump is statistically insignificant.
The data contradicts national polls showing Biden supporters overwhelmingly plan to vote by mail or early in person. According to a Pew Research poll released Friday, 55% of voters who plan to cast their ballot in person before Election Day support Biden, compared to 40% who support President Trump.
…..
An alternative explanation is that the polls didn’t measure enthusiasm and as a result have overstated support for the Democrats and understated support for the Republicans.
1) Is Pew intentionally partisan?
2) I have gotten to the point that I never tell people who I don’t know fairly well my political views. I might feed them BS just for the fun of it, especially if they are fishing.
These are push polls, Hiding your support for President Trump makes it easier for these polling Companies to suppress Republican turn out. If they called me I would tell them that everyone in my family and everyone on my street and in fact everyone I know is voting for President Trump.
Pew leans Democrat but I’ve always thought they were honest.
Pew has Corrupt_HidenBiden 10 points up over Trump.
Perfectly honest.
“For a few weeks now, there has been a massive divide between what the polls say and what you can see happening on the ground.”
Make that more than four years.
I am predicting Trump wins in a landslide.
I put my justification of “why” in the Obama air drop post.
I live in WA State and have voted by mail for almost 25 years. Filled out the ballot today and put it in the mailbox with the flag up for the letter carrier to collect. Given that the Ds could nominate Satan and win here, I wrote in Kanye West to show that I ain’t no racist. LOL
It will be the late voting that makes a difference. Dems need to wait until they know how many dead people’s votes they need before they can really get things rolling.