Here’s your daily EV update. A total of 70,621 in-person votes were cast yesterday, which is a 42.8% gain over 2004’s figure of 49,449. Not quite the Birnberg number, but close enough. The grand total with two days to go is 513,888, which is more than the entire early plus mail total from 2004. We are truly in uncharted territory.
Having said that, the growth curve is perhaps not quite as robust as it could be. We may still get to 700,000 early in-person votes, but we may wind up closer to 650,000 instead. Dr. Murray’s estimated amount of 750,000 early plus mail ballots (49,558 have been returned so far) is within reach, but is probably on the high end. On the other hand, the last two days are historically the busiest, and the last Friday of 2004 was over 35% busier than the last Wednesday. We certainly may see a big surge at the end. Nobody really knows.
On a lark yesterday, I asked the folks who follow me on Twitter if they had voted yet, and if not when they were planning to. Of the 16 people who responded, ten had already voted, three were intending to vote early but hadn’t gotten to it, two were planning to vote on Election Day, and one was still waiting for an absentee ballot to arrive. So there’s your unscientific election factoid for the day.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in what old Dr. Dick predicts.
Four years ago he said Bush would carry Texas by only 600-800,000 in the New York Times. Bush carried Texas by over 1.6 million.
And polling done on people who voted in the 2008 Obama- Clinton fight in March (and had never voted in a Democratic Primary before) show that they are nominal Democrats at best and a large number of them were independents who have swung to McCain.
This reality shews a lot of the numbers being produced by local numbers crunchers from early voting.
It ain’t as good as you think.
As a dem the voting is not as robust in certain parts of Harris County as I thought it would be. Early voters can vote anywhere in the county. That being said the voting totals in the certain areas, sunnyside, acres homes, etc… are much lower than I thought they would be.