Democrats say their advantage in early voting has allowed Joe Biden’s presidential campaign to sharpen its operation to boost participation by having a smaller universe to target, while Republicans prepare a whole or nothing to get the votes for President Donald Trump on November 3.
Early voting, both by mail and in person, has reached record numbers, with Americans encouraged by a very significant election, but also concerned about overcrowding at polling stations during the coronavirus pandemic.
State data on who voted ahead shows that the ballots issued by Democrats registered so far outweigh those issued by registered Republicans.
Party membership does not necessarily indicate which candidate they supported. But polls show that the vast majority of early votes cast by registered Democrats are likely to be for Biden, opening the possibility for the candidate to leave with a considerable advantage on Election Day, even in key states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Arizona.
In the 20 states that publish the early voter register, more than 17.4 million Democrats had voted through Wednesday compared to 10.8 million Republicans, according to figures compiled by the University of Florida’s U.S. Election Project.
About 47 million Americans who have voted so far are not affiliated with any party or live in a state that does not publicly report voter supporting records.
Trump’s campaign did not answer questions about the importance of election day participation to the president’s hopes of winning a second term. But Republicans argue that early Democratic votes have merely “cannibalized” Biden’s vote on Election Day, and that most Democrats simply voted on a different day.
Biden’s campaign acknowledged that many, if not most, of his early voters would have appeared on Election Day anyway. However, having so many votes already cast allows them to focus their resources on persuading in frequent voters to come to the polls or to persuade independents or even Republican-prone voters who have not yet made up their minds, officials said.
“Every time someone votes, we can remove them from our universe,” Reuters Becca Siegel, the campaign’s head of analysis, told Reuters. “As more people vote, we can talk more to our core sporadic voters. We can also expand our universe to places with lower voter density. That’s something we can do that the other side can’t.”
In a year in a year over the side of all sorts of unexpected events, the accumulated votes also serve as an insurance policy in case COVID-19, weather or some other disorder keeps voters away from the polls on November 3, said Josh Mendelsohn, CEO of Hawkfish, a Democratic data company.
“You stop worrying about participation on Election Day,” Mendelsohn said.
Republican officials, meanwhile, are stepping up their efforts to get the vote. In Pennsylvania, where registered Democrats account for 69% of the nearly 2 million votes cast so far, Republicans are texting those who have requested votes by mail but have not yet returned them. They are also making plans to have a carnival atmosphere in the voting ranks on November 3.
In Northampton, an undecided county trump won by 4 percentage points in 2016, volunteers plan to set up Trump’s tents and flags at the 10 most active polling places to motivate voters, said Lee Snover, head of the Republican Party in the county. Volunteers will also keep a voter’s place in line if they need to pick up their children, he said.
“We only have hours to do this, so we have to make sure we get all the votes,” Snover said.
Jim Worthington, owner of a luxury gym in suburban Philadelphia, founded a proTrump group to help the president win suburban Bucks County in Pennsylvania and keep the competitive first congressional district in the hands ofand Republicans. He said he spent $500,000 to identify and reach about 15,000 people who don’t vote regularly. The money was spent first to convince them to vote by mail, but it will become a campaign through doors and over the phone as Election Day approaches.
“It’s an election for participation and we need great participation,” Worthington said.
With data indicating that many Democrats have already voted, some Republican strategists say Trump might need massive involvement from his supporters in a single day to counter Biden’s early lead at a time when coronavirus cases are increasing.
“That was always going to be the risk that Republicans faced. If there’s a peak (of COVID-19), and obviously there’s a spike, that could be a real problem,” said Amy Koch, a Republican strata from Minnesota, one of several northern states where virus case rates are rising rapidly.
Gyros in Iowa
More than 75 million Americans have already voted more than 75 million Americans by Wednesday. It is by far the largest number of votes anticipated, and is more than half of the final participation of 138 million votes in the 2016 election. The staggering numbers have led some analysts to predict the highest participation rate in a century. With this data, some Republican strategists say Trump might need massive involvement from his supporters in a single day to counter Biden’s early lead. It is by far the largest number of votes anticipated, and is more than half of the final participation of 138 million votes in the 2016 election. The staggering numbers have led some analysts to predict the highest participation rate in a century.
The actual votes of each candidate will not be known until the closing of the ballot boxes, perhaps with a delay of days or more.
Pollsters have long predicted that Biden voters would dominate mail voting after Trump’s repeated baseless claims that he would be plagued by fraud. Still, many registered Republicans have taken advantage of early voting in person, appearing so far in greater numbers than Democrats in Florida, for example.
The Democratic data company Hawkfish, which uses survey demographics to model which candidate a voter would support, gives Biden an advantage of more than 3 million votes in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, based on data shared with Reuters through October 25.
Biden’s campaign said most of the first Democratic voters were reliable supporters of the campaign. The fact that they suffer earlier has given the campaign more time to focus on people who lean towards Democrats but don’t always go to the polls.
The campaign can also broaden its persuasion goals, turning its attention to Trump’s “soft” supporters, as more soft Biden supporters have already voted, according to Siegel, the campaign’s chief analysis.
The campaign uses the data to identify the television networks that specific voters are watching. As more Democrats voted, conservative-trend Fox News has increased its importance as a tool of persuasion, Siegel said, but did not say whether the campaign planned to modify its ad purchases.
Biden’s campaign has spent just over $3 million on Fox News ads in October, more than any other cable network, according to Advertising Analytics, an advertising tracking company.
In Iowa, a state that Trump won comfortably in 2016 but where polls show a close career, Polk County Democrats, where the city of Des Moines is located, have returned their ballots quickly and in large numbers.
That has freed up the party’s time to woo communities less likely to vote, said Sean Bagniewski, the Democratic president of Polk County.
The party is handing out Bosnian “gyros” (a typical dish) in a mosque to reach the refugee community and serving tamales in a Hispanic-owned grocery store.
“We don’t usually have that space because we focus on a lot of people,” he said.
Who’s missing
In Florida, more than 45% of the 14 million registered voters have already cast their ballots, reflecting the enthusiasm of both sides. About 20% of state voters are not affiliated with any party. Nearly a third of Florida’s un affiliated early voters this year did not register or vote in 2016, Said Daniel Smith of the University of Florida.
Hawkfish, the data firm ofestimates that 56% of those who have already voted in Florida probably voted for Biden, compared to 44% of Trump.
Republicans, meanwhile, say they are using detailed data on registered voters to identify those who may lean toward Trump. Trump’s campaign has 190 employees and about 60,000 volunteers in Florida, whose 29 electoral college votes are key to re-election.
“We know every day exactly who voted, we know who’s left, we know who we think supports the president. So it’s our job to go out and vote,” said Joe Gruters, president of the Florida Republican Party.
Trump also hopes that a frantic rallies program in the disputed states – each with thousands of his most ardent supporters – will give him more votes. On Monday he made three stops in Pennsylvania, his fourteenth visit to the state since June.
In Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, GOP President Sam DeMarco has personally sent a message to all Republican voters in his county who requested a vote by mail but have not yet delivered it.
Volunteers from as far away as Alabama and Texas have traveled with a group called the Mighty American Strike Force to knock on doors in suburban Pittsburgh and make phone calls to voters, he said.
“We’re doing things we’ve never done before to get our vote,” DeMarco said.
