How early vote surge is shaping endgame

Republicans brace for an all-or-nothing scramble to turn out votes for President Trump on November 3 Democrats hope early voting will help them focus on undecided and independent voters in coming days Opinion polls show Biden with a significant edge nat

Democrats say their advantage in early voting has allowed Joe Biden’s presidential campaign to sharpen its get-out-thevote operation by targeting a smaller universe of potential supporters, while Republicans brace for an all-or-nothing scramble to turn out votes for President Donald Trump on November 3.

State data on who has voted early show ballots cast by registered Democrats so far outpacing those cast by registered Republicans.

Across the 20 states that publish the party registration of early voters, more than 17.4 million registered Democrats had voted by Wednesday compared with 10.8 million registered Republicans, according to figures compiled by the US Elections Project at the University of Florida.

Opinion polls show Biden with a significant edge nationally, but his lead is tighter in battleground states.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday showed Trump had essentially moved into a tie with Biden in Florida, with 49 per cent saying they would vote for Biden and 47 per cent for the president. With its 29 electoral votes, the state is a major prize in next Tuesday’s election.

About 47 million Americans who have voted so far either are not affiliated with a party or live in a state that does not publicly report a voter’s party affiliation.

The Trump campaign did not respond to questions about the importance of Election Day turnout to the president’s hopes of winning a second term. But Republicans contend the Democratic early ballots have merely “cannibalized” Biden’s Election Day vote, with most Democrats simply shifting to another day.

Biden’s campaign acknowledged that many, if not most, of its early voters would have shown up on Election Day anyway. Still, having so many votes already cast allows them to focus their resources either on convincing infrequent voters to come out to the polls, or on persuading independent or even Republican-leaning voters who have yet to decide, officials said.

“Every time someone votes, we can remove them from our universes,” Becca Siegel, the campaign’s chief analytics officer, said.

Republican officials, meanwhile, are stepping up their get-out-the-vote efforts. In Pennsylvania, where registered Democrats account for 69per cent of the nearly 2 million early votes cast so far, Republicans are texting those who have requested mail ballots but have yet to return them. Republicans also are making plans to bring a carnival-like atmosphere to polling lines on Nov. 3.

Republicans have long embraced mail balloting, but they have shifted to in-person voting amid repeated, unfounded attacks from Trump who says the system is plagued by widespread fraud. With the data indicating that many Democrats have already voted, some Republican strategists say Trump may now need a massive single-day turnout of his

supporters to counter the early Biden advantage at a time when coronavirus cases are surging.

Trump continues to hold massive rallies where many attendees shun masks, a sign his supporters are unfazed by the health risks.

“I ask you one little favour: get the hell out and vote,” Trump told thousands gathered in chilly Nebraska on Tuesday.

More than 75 million Americans had already cast ballots as of Wednesday. That’s by far the most-ever in early voting, and it’s more than half the final turnout of 138 million votes recorded in the 2016 election.

The staggering figures have prompted some analysts to predict the highest turnout rate in a century.

The actual votes for each candidate won’t be known until polls close, perhaps with a lag of days or more.

Pollsters have long predicted Biden voters would dominate mail-in voting after Trump’s repeated, unsubstantiated claims that it would be ridden with fraud. Still, many reg

istered Republicans have taken advantage of early in-person voting, so far showing up in greater numbers than Democrats in Florida, for instance.

Democratic data firm Hawkfish, which uses demographic data from polls to model which candidate a voter would likely support, gives Biden a lead of more than 3 million votes across Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to data shared with Reuters through October 25.

In Florida, more than 45% of the state’s 14 million registered voters have already cast their ballots, reflecting enthusiasm on both sides of the contest.

While Republicans trail registered Democrats in overall early voting by about 250,000 votes due largely to their lower use of mail ballots, they have been closing that gap by voting in-person in higher numbers, state data show.

About 20 per cent of voters in the state have no party affiliation. —