I am happy to see that! But I still think there’ a possibility that Trump’s more ardent supporters are not going to vote early; they are going to show up at the polling places to intimidate, or verify, voters. I will gladly be mistaken.
I thought I’d add some good news. 3.9% of registered voters here in Buncombe County, NC (Asheville) cast ballots on the first day of early voting, which is higher than both 2008 (3.6%) and 2012 (3.1%).
And while VA isn’t a battleground this cycle, early voting is up 60% compared to 2012 in the northern part of the state that heavily leans Democratic. Early voting elsewhere in the Old Dominion is down just slightly.
Shhh…tell the Trumpies they’re ahead, gonna lock her up, sue the accusers, get Mexico to split the check down the middle (even tho we got drinks and apps! Haha! Burnnnnn!!!). No worries, boys, you can sit this one out!
In Colorado, which began voting by mail on Monday,
Democrats led 43 percent to 30 percent among the 15,280
ballots returned by late Thursday. In 2012, the party
had trailed Republicans early. Registered Democrats have
since surpassed Republicans in the state.
Wooo… Hoooo ! –
So if all we know is the party affiliation of the voter, then I wonder how many Republicans early voted for Hillary?
Another encouraging sign: Politico reports that there are now 200 million voters in the US for the first time.
A highlight:
"The 2016 campaign may have reached dispiriting new lows, but voter registration in America has soared to new heights as 200 million people are now registered to vote for the first time in U.S. history.
The milestone is a sign of the aggressive voter registration efforts ahead of Nov. 8 and a symptom of the fast-growing and demographically shifting electorate that is expected to redound to the benefit of the Democratic Party in the coming years.
The wave of new voters this year has dramatically favored the Democratic Party, according to TargetSmart, which analyzed the expected party preferences of the new registrants in 15 of the first- and second-tier presidential battlegrounds.
Overall, TargetSmart found that 42.6 percent of the new voters registered this year lean Democratic, and only 29 percent lean Republican (28.4 percent lean independent)…
Worse for the GOP, registration trended more Democratic in every single battleground state, from a small margin in Georgia (4.3 percentage points) to massive leads in diversifying states like Colorado (29.3 points), Nevada (20.4 points) and North Carolina (9.2 points).
And since June 1, the trend has been even more stark. In Virginia, TargetSmart’s data show only 11.7 percent of new registrants lean Republican — versus nearly 50 percent expected to lean Democratic.
Across all 15 battlegrounds, the Democratic advantage is nearly 22 percentage points since June 1…"
I voted early this week and feel lots better to have that out of the way. No lines, in and out in 15 minutes. Take a friend with you when you go.