Obama Dominating Early Voting

Last week, SurveyUSA started polling in states in which some form of early voting was already underway. They asked respondents: "Have you already voted?" If the answer was yes, they asked: "For whom?"

Here are their results among early voters from five key swing states, all of which George W. Bush carried in 2004 (in parentheses are the percentages of respondents in the state who voted early):

Georgia--Obama +6 (18% voted early)
Iowa--Obama +34 (14% voted early)
New Mexico--Obama +23 (10% voted early)
North Carolina--Obama +34 (5% voted early)
Ohio--Obama +18 (12% voted early)

Remember that these numbers are only estimates and are subject to same kind of statistical inconsistencies as other polls, such as response bias and small sample sizes (the number of early voters polled in Ohio was only about 60).

In addition, early voters are probably not representative of the state as a whole. These voters tend to be more partisan and already have their minds made up, while the swing voters will probably wait until November 4 (only 1-2 percent of early voters in 2000 and 2004 reported that they would have voted differently if they'd waited until election day). So take these results with a grain of salt.

But, there is no doubt that these numbers are good news for Barack Obama. One thing that these results do show is a massive advantage for Democrats in enthusiasm and voter turnout. These results imply that, as expected, Obama is turning out his base in very large numbers, and so far it looks like John McCain is lagging in rallying up his base.

Bush carried these five states by an average of 6.5% in 2004, and now Obama leads in them by an average of 23% among early voters. That alone is reason for the Obama campaign to celebrate.

Another bit of good news that this result brings us is the fact that early voters tend to be older and more male than the voting population as a whole, factors which would seem to cut against Obama, who is strongest among women and younger voters.

From these numbers we can expect a large Democratic turnout on election day, one that McCain and the Republicans might struggle to match, affecting not only the outcome of the presidential race, but also many competitive down-ticket Congressional and Gubernatorial races in favor of the Democrats.