Monday, November 4, 2024

What the early vote tells us — and what it doesn’t

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Nov 04, 2024 View in browser
 
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By Calder McHugh

An early voting sign is visible at Atlanta Metropolitan State College on October 15, the first day of early voting in Georgia.

An early voting sign is visible at Atlanta Metropolitan State College on October 15, the first day of early voting in Georgia. | Megan Varner/Getty Images

KNOWN UNKNOWNS — On election eve, campaign operatives and political hobbyists are parsing what limited voting data we have — largely from the over 78 million early votes that have been cast — in an attempt to figure out who’s going to win the White House Tuesday. What they’ve concluded is wildly different, depending on whom you’re listening to.

Republicans and their allies argue that since they are turning out voters at a much more robust clip than in previous cycles, Election Day will be a far steeper climb than usual for Democrats. It’s a sign of through-the-roof enthusiasm, they say, underscored by the fact that urban turnout is down while rural turnout is up — a portent of good fortunes for the GOP. For their part, Democrats argue that the fundamentals of the early vote totals have changed, making those advances a zero sum game, Republicans are cannibalizing their past strength on Election Day by turning out early, and moreover, some of the fundamentals — like the number of women who are voting early — points towards success for Kamala Harris.

Neither can be taken exactly at face value; the early vote neither tells us which candidate people are voting for (just their party registration) nor is it a good sample of the electorate. Still, there are ways in which the early vote data — combined with other information that we already know about the race — can help to make a deeply muddy picture slightly clearer. Here are the three big things the early vote is telling us:

There’s a big gender gap in the early vote: Republicans largely are projecting confidence about their early vote performance, which across swing states looks a lot better than in 2020. What they’re concerned about is the gender gap. Polling shows that women largely support Harris while men largely support Trump, and that the gender gap is wider than in past cycles.

An analysis of the early vote from POLITICO last week found a 10-point gender gap in early voting in battleground states, with 55 percent of the early vote coming from women and 45 percent coming from men. This disparity was a red flag for conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, whose organization Turning Point USA has been key to Trump’s get out the vote campaign. He wrote on October 30, “Early vote has been disproportionately female. If men stay at home, Kamala is president. It’s that simple.”

Women outvoted men in the early vote at a similar clip in 2020 as well. But if the gender gap has truly widened, then this early vote margin could be a good sign for Harris.

Yet this morsel of information about the gender gap shouldn’t be treated as gospel — it’s entirely possible that women are just voting earlier than men, cannibalizing their Election Day totals, and men will show up on Tuesday to deliver a victory to Trump. Still, the reason it’s potentially useful to consider is that it aligns with what we know about past voting behavior and what the polls tell us about voter preferences this year. Young men in particular are much more pro-Trump than their female counterparts, but they’re also statistically the least motivated demographic of voters.

Rural voters make up a larger slice of the early vote than in 2020: A memo that the Trump campaign blasted out today lays out why they think the early vote is a harbinger of a successful night. According to the campaign’s argument, the combination of early vote gains in rural areas — and the lagging early vote numbers in urban areas — signals far more enthusiasm for Donald Trump among one of his core constituencies and less excitement within a critical Democratic constituency. This is particularly true in Georgia, where the early vote out of urban areas has decreased by over 150,000 votes while the rural turnout has increased by over 170,000 votes. Yet Democratic strategist Tom Bonier of TargetSmart, who produced that data, says that the Trump campaign has mischaracterized it because the 2020 to 2024 comparison is not a good benchmark for comparison.

Why? Because the 2020 election was in many respects an outlier due to COVID, making it a deeply imperfect point of comparison for 2024. What’s undeniable, however, is that Republicans are voting early at higher rates than they did in 2020. Data gathered by CNN, Edison Research and Catalyst shows that early voters are older, slightly more likely to be white and more Republican than last cycle. In part, this is a clear response to Trump’s own rhetoric — while he told his supporters to wait for Election Day to cast their votes in 2020, this time around he’s asking them to vote early. But there’s some reason to believe that the early vote numbers could portend good fortune for Republicans.

Republicans are probably cannibalizing their Election Day vote, to some extent: The Democratic rejoinder to Republican triumphalism about the early vote in the swing states is that these are reliable Republican voters who have simply changed their voting behavior compared to 2020. Their increased share of the early vote will lead to a decreased share of the Election Day vote.

Consider Pennsylvania. In 2020, Democrats had an over 40-point advantage in the early vote totals over Republicans. This year, that’s down to 24 points. That’s still a significant firewall that Republicans have to overcome. By eating into the Democratic early vote advantage, the mountain is smaller. But now, Republicans have a different concern — that they won’t have enough Election Day votes this year to overcome that diminished Democratic advantage.

We won’t know until the polls close in Pennsylvania tomorrow evening. What’s certain is that Republicans have taken a big step toward addressing their early vote deficit. The bigger question, however, remains unanswered: How likely to show up on Election Day are the lower propensity voters that Trump is reliant on?

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @calder_mchugh.

What'd I Miss?

— Supreme Court to hear case challenging Louisiana’s second majority-Black district: The Supreme Court will hear arguments on a Louisiana congressional redistricting map that created two majority-Black districts in the state rather than just one. The appeal, likely to be argued early next year, will not affect this year’s elections. But it could be a vehicle for the high court to chip away further at the Voting Rights Act, the landmark Civil Rights-Era law that bars voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race.

— Elon Musk’s lawyer defends daily $1 million payments to voters: A lawyer for MAGA-convert Elon Musk defended the legality of Musk’s $1-million-a-day giveaway to voters, saying the daily payments represent a “salary” to voters rather than illegal lottery payouts. During a court hearing today at Philadelphia’s City Hall, the judge presiding over a legal challenge to the giveaway did not immediately signal how he plans to rule. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner filed the lawsuit last week, arguing that the promotion run by Musk and his America PAC violates Pennsylvania’s law banning illegal lotteries.

— States are amping up security for Electoral College meetings: Officials across the country are preparing for the possibility that violent protestors or armed extremists could attempt to disrupt the meetings of presidential electors next month. After Jan. 6, many state officials feel they can no longer take the once-ceremonial aspects of the transfer of power for granted. Officials have been working with local and state law enforcement for months on locking down the Electoral College meetings, which take place simultaneously in all 50 state capitals and Washington, D.C. in December.

Nightly Road to 2024

FINAL MESSAGE — Kamala Harris is barreling across Pennsylvania on the final day of the presidential campaign , preaching unity and patriotism to voters in the nation’s biggest swing state. Her tour — taking her to five separate cities in fewer than 12 hours — amounts to the final bet Harris is placing on the race. The vice president has spent more time and money in Pennsylvania than any other battleground, and her decision to dedicate today solely to the state underscores how critical she believes it will be in determining the outcome. Donald Trump is also holding rallies in Pennsylvania today, as well as North Carolina and Michigan.

NO EXTENSION — About 3,000 people who received their absentee ballots late in a heavily Democratic county in Georgia may not have their votes counted if they aren’t returned before polls close Tuesday.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled today that the absentee ballots sent out late in Cobb County won’t get an extension granted by a lower court. Last week, after foul-ups by Cobb County election officials caused delays, a lower-court judge ordered absentee ballots to be sent to voters by overnight delivery. He also ruled that ballots postmarked by Election Day would be counted if they arrive by 5 p.m. Friday.

HOW HARRIS WINS — Campaigns — and candidates — matter. That’s why Kamala Harris could defeat Donald Trump, despite a national mood and an issue set that is helping pave the way for the former president’s comeback from political ignominy.

HOW TRUMP WINS — Donald Trump’s once-unlikely electoral comeback would actually make perfect sense. Voters are deeply dissatisfied with the direction of the country under President Joe Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t done enough to break with him. The economy, inflation and immigration remain dominant issues, and voters say Trump handled them better during his presidency. Despite ending his single term as one of the least-popular presidents of the past 50 years following his defeat and the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, about half of voters now say they approve of the job Trump did as president in retrospect.

AROUND THE WORLD

Israeli soldiers close the gate of Erez Crossing after trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip.

Israeli soldiers close the gate of Erez Crossing after trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip on Oct. 21. | Tsafrir Abayov/AP

AID AGREEMENT TERMINATED — Israel said today that it has terminated the agreement facilitating the work of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees , the main aid provider in Gaza, in what appeared to be a step to implement legislation passed last month that would sever ties with the agency and prevent it from operating in Israel.

Israel says the agency, known as UNRWA, has been infiltrated by Hamas. UNRWA denies the allegations and says it takes measures to ensure its neutrality.

WESTERN WIN — Moldova’s pro-Western President Maia Sandu has won a second term in a pivotal presidential runoff against a Russia-friendly opponent, reports The Associated Press, in a race that was overshadowed by claims of Russian interference, voter fraud and intimidation in the European Union candidate country.

With nearly 99% of votes counted in the second round of the presidential election held Sunday, Sandu had 55% of the vote, according to the Central Electoral Commission, or CEC, compared to 45% for Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor general who was backed by the pro-Russia Party of Socialists.

The result will be a major relief for the pro-Western government, which strongly backed Sandu’s candidacy, and her push for closer Western ties on Moldova’s path toward the EU.

THE TOLL IN LEBANON — The now 13-month war between Israel and Hezbollah has now killed more than 3,000 people in Lebanon, according to the country’s Health Ministry. The death toll is more than double the number of people killed since their last major war 20 years ago; at least 13,492 have been injured.

With no signs of the war ending, Israel has said it is carrying out new operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure across Lebanon and in parts of Syria while Hezbollah continues to launch dozens of rockets into northern Israel.

Nightly Number

Over 60 percent

The percentage of clean energy investments from the Inflation Reduction Act that will begin operations between 2025 and 2029, according to an analysis from POLITICO. Many of the private-sector green manufacturing projects that businesses announced since the passage of the IRA in 2022 are arriving slower than expected.

RADAR SWEEP

AI ADVANCEMENT — The number of people living in urban areas has tripled in the last 50 years, meaning that when natural disaster strikes a city, many more lives are at risk. As extreme weather events are expected to rise from climate change, organizations are working to develop a new generation of earthquake monitoring and climate forecasting systems. A United Nations initiative is doing so through the use of artificial intelligence by enhancing everything from data collection to streamlined communication. A conference on Nov. 6 will bring together four years of work on AI’s use cases for disasters and set up the future of the burgeoning strategy. Harry Booth and Tharin Pillay explore the upcoming event and its consequences for TIME.

Parting Image

On this date in 1980: President Jimmy Carter concedes defeat in the presidential election as he addresses a group of Carter-Mondale supporters in Washington, D.C. Ronald Reagan defeated Carter, carrying 44 states.

On this date in 1980: President Jimmy Carter concedes defeat in the presidential election as he addresses a group of Carter-Mondale supporters in Washington, D.C. Ronald Reagan defeated Carter, carrying 44 states. | AP

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