Who is voting? Who is winning? Early vote only offers clues

As early voting breaks records across the U.S., political analysts and campaigns are reviewing reams of data on the voters, looking for clues to key questions: Who is voting? And who is winning?

On one level, the answers can be simple. Registered Democrats are outpacing registered Republicans significantly — by 14 percentage points — in states that are reporting voters’ party affiliation, according to an Associated Press analysis of the early vote.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Many Americans’ choices don’t align with their party registration. Meanwhile, polls show Republicans have heeded President Donald Trump’s baseless warnings about mail voting, and large numbers intend to vote on Election Day. That means the early Democratic surge could give way to a Republican surge on Tuesday.

Early voting spikes

As of Friday afternoon, 86.8 million people had voted in the presidential election. That’s 63 percent of the total who cast ballots in the 2016 race. Most election experts think the United States will see 150 million to 160 million ballots cast in 2020, which would mean that we are likely more than halfway through voting. In one state, Texas, more votes have already been cast than in all of 2016.

Democrats have a big lead in the early vote over the GOP — 47 percent to 33 percent — according to the AP analysis of data from the political data firm L2.

That doesn’t mean Democrats are going to win. But it does increase the pressure on Republicans to have a similar advantage — or higher — on Election Day.

New voters are showing up

The big turnout question in all elections is: Which side is bringing in new voters? The data shows Democrats are accomplishing that — but not necessarily as dramatically as some of the big overall numbers might suggest.

More than 1 out of 4 of all ballots — 27 percent — were cast either by new or infrequent voters, according to AP’s analysis. Those are voters who have never voted before or voted in fewer than half of the elections in which they were eligible. It sounds like a big number, but it’s not too much greater than past years. The Democratic data firm Catalist found that, in 2016, roughly one-quarter of the electorate didn’t vote in the previous presidential election.

Still, the number may well grow, as new and infrequent voters tend to vote close to, or on, Election Day. And even small increases in the tight battlegrounds can make a difference.

Arise in that number appears to be good news for Democrats. Forty-three percent of the infrequent and new voters are registered Democrats, compared to a quarter who are Republicans. The remaining third are registered as independents or with a minor party — a group that tends to favor Democratic candidates.

Black voters holding steady

Biden’s fate may be tied to strong turnout among Black voters in the battleground states. So far, about 9 percent of the early vote has been cast by African-Americans, about on par with the 10 percent of the electorate Black voters made up in 2016, according to a Pew Research estimate of voters in that election.

Black voters are tracking closely with their share of the electorate in several battlegrounds. In North Carolina, they are 21 percent of both all early voters and all registered voters. In Georgia, they make up 30 percent of the early vote and 32 percent of registered voters.

There’s been a surge in the older AfricanAmerican vote. Black voters 65 and older are already one of the most reliable voting demographics, but according to TargetSmart data they have already surpassed their numbers in six key battlegrounds — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Texas.

Democrats hope for bright spot in young voters

As of Friday, AP’s analysis showed 11.3 percent of early votes have been cast by voters between the ages of 18 and 29. That’s up slightly from this point in 2016, when 9.6 percent of the early vote was cast by people under age 30, according to TargetSmart.

And in the Sunbelt battlegrounds of Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, young voters are turning out at a hefty rate of 30 percent or above, according to AP data.

That’s again a good sign for Democrats, but a very preliminary one. Young voters lean Democratic, and when Democrats rush to the polls, it’s not unexpected that their numbers would be higher.

Will high turnout sway the outcome?

Republicans argue that predicted record turnout won’t matter much in battleground states.

When all the votes are counted, the Trump campaign predicts that the turnout rate in battleground states in 2020 will be similar to in 2016.

“It is pretty predictable what they’ve brought into the electorate,“Nick Trainer, the Trump campaign’s director of battleground strategy said of Democrats. “We will bring our own new voters into the electorate ourselves, and it will all come out in the washing machine.”