Huge absentee vote in key states favors Democrats so far

In Madison, Wis., thousands of peoplehave goneto parks to deliver their ballots during Saturday voting festivals. In Milwaukee, Facebook feeds are inundated with selfies of Democrats inserting ballots intodropboxes. And along the shores of Lake Superior, voters inWisconsin’s liberal northwest corner still trust the Postal Service to deliver ballots.

Of all the mini-battle grounds within Wisconsin— perhaps the most pivotal state in November for both President Donald Trump and Joe Biden — the mother lode of absentee ballots is coming in Dane County, a Democratic stronghold that includes Madison. As of Friday, the number of submitted ballots there amounted to more than 36 percent of the county’s total 2016 election vote, 10 percentage points higher than in any other county in the state.

In Wisconsin’s Republican heartland, the suburban counties that ring Milwaukee, the absentee turnout is only at about the state average so far. And in the dozens of rural counties where Trumpwon huge victories four years ago, ballots are being returned at a far slower rate than in the state’s Democratic areas.

The yawning disparities in voting across Wisconsin and other key battlegrounds so far are among the clearest signs yet that the Democratic embrace of absentee voting is resulting in head starts for the party ahead of Election Day. For Republicans, the voting patterns underscore the huge bet they are placing on high turnout on Nov. 3, even as states like Wisconsin face safety concerns given the spikes in coronavirus cases.

The Democratic enthusiasm to vote is not limited to Wisconsin. Ballot return data from heavily Democratic cities likePittsburgh; Chapel Hill, N. C.; and Tampa, Fla., and the long lines of cars waiting at a Houston arena to drop off ballots, are signs that many voters have followed through on their intentions to cast ballots well ahead of Nov. 3.

There is still time for Republicans to catch up in many places, and they are expected to vote in strong numbers in person on Election Day. And untold numbers of absentee ballots could be rejected for failing to fulfill requirements, like witness signatures, or could face legal challenges.

Tom Bonier, the chief executive of TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm, said his models showed Democrats with a 10-point advantage among the 275,000 first-time voters nationwide who had already cast ballots and an 18-point lead among 1.1 million “sporadic voters” who had already voted.

At the same point in the 2016 cycle, Bonier said, his model showed Democrats with a 1.6-point advantage among sporadic voters.

“Democrats are highly engaged, and they’re turning out,” Bonier said. “Republicans can’t say the same.”

As of Friday, more than 8.3 million ballots had already been received by elections officials in the30states that have made data available. In six states — including the battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Minnesota — the number of ballots returned already is more than 20percent of the entire 2016 turnout.

Officials from both parties say that Democrats are farmore eager to vote early. Many Republicans have followed the lead of Trump, whohas regularly castigated voting by mail.

Just 26 percent of Democrats said they planned to vote in person on Election Day, compared with 56 percent ofRepublicans, according to polling of likely voters in 11battleground states conducted by the New York Times and Siena College since Sept. 8.

“People that I’m talking to are going to go to the polls,” said James Edming, a Republican assemblyman from northern Wisconsin who was the first elected official there to endorse Trump’s 2016 campaign. “If you put ’emin the mail, God only knows. But if I turn it in to the clerk at the Town of True, I know it’s going to count.”