Record Early Voting Shows the Blue Wave is Rolling Along

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Well over 30 million Americans have already cast their ballots for Tuesday’s midterm elections. Many states set records for early voting even though there were days left to vote. And in some states more early votes have been cast than were cast in the entire 2014 midterm election. And all of this is good news for Democrats.

Overall there is every indication that 2018 will bring a higher turnout for a midterm election than has ever been seen before.

According to the Associated Press, 28 states have exceeded their previous early vote totals. In some cases the early vote totals this year will be as high as the early turnout for the 2016 presidential election. Usually midterm elections have both early and total voter turnouts that are about 60% of the turnout for presidential election years.

One factor that greatly favors Democrats is the huge increase in the number of early votes that have been cast by the youngest voting group. Reid Wilson from The Hill compiled the following interesting statistics on young voter turnout in 2018:

“Turnout among 18-29 year olds, compared to 2014 early voting:
– AZ +217%
– FL +131%
– GA +415% (!!!)
– MI +128%
– NV +364%
– TN +767% (!!!)
– TX +448% (!!!)”

The total early vote in 2014 was 28.3 million and with several days left the 2018 early vote was near 31 million.

Both Democratic and Republican analysts, as well as independent political scientists, have said that this year’s total turnout will probably be near 50 percent, which is extremely high for a midterm election. In 2014 the total voter turnout was only 36 percent.

In Texas Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke believes that the high early voting turnout will help him win.

“If this continues, we win,” O’Rourke said Friday after a rally. “I feel very good about our prospects, not just on Election Night, but on being able to deliver for the next six years that follow on every priority, from health care to education to immigration to criminal justice reform. Texas is going to be the leader that this country has been waiting for.”

Available data is showing that so far early voting is favoring Democrats. We don’t know who people have voted for, but we do know the number of each party’s registered voters who have cast ballots. And nationwide, “in states that require party registration, Democrats have cast 41 percent of the early ballots, compared to 36 percent for Republicans.”

A wild card in predicting total vote outcomes is that sometimes there is “crossover voting” where people registered with one party vote for candidates from the other party. This is a year when many Republicans have said they will vote for Democratic House candidates so Trump will be held accountable by a Democratically-controlled House. So that should favor Democrats.

Another wild card is the preference of independent voters. Again, this year, Democrats have been leading among independents, most of whom have been turned off by the words and behavior of the Republican president.

One encouraging sign seen throughout the country — which also may help Democrats — is the very high percentage of first-time voters who have already cast ballots. The majority of these are younger voters who tend to favor Democratic candidates.

University of Florida political science professor Daniel Smith said that in his state there is a very large number of young first-time voters.

“There are newly energized voters who sat out in 2016, or have registered since then, who are turning out. There’s no question about that,” Smith said.

The extremely high interest in this year’s election is undoubtedly a good sign for American democracy. It is also undoubtedly a good sign for Democratic candidates. Conventional wisdom says that Democrats are helped by high turnout, so based on data so far, it appears that the Blue Wave is alive and well and rolling along to a successful outcome on Tuesday night.

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Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.