We are at the end of the first business week, shortened by the holiday on Monday. It’s been a brisk week, especially compared to other years, but there should be a lot more to come. Here’s the Day Four report for 2020, and here are the totals from 2012, 2016, and 2018. The totals after Day Four:
Year Mail Early Total
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2012 5,609 8,542 14,151
2016 8,850 14,554 23,404
2018 8,844 16,110 24,954
2020 15,101 25,254 40,355
2012 12,111 18,643 30,754
2016 12,205 21,348 33,553
2018 12,530 15,515 28,045
2020 16,528 24,778 41,306
A large number of Republican mail ballots being returned push them into the lead so far. More Dems have voted in person, and more Dem mail ballots remain to be returned than Republican mail ballots (23K to 15K). Democrats have had a bigger jump in turnout from 2016, but they had a lower base to start with. I’m seeing more or less what I expected from Dems, but more Republicans are turning out than I thought would. We’ll see how that continues.
By the way, I combined Days Four and Five from 2012 in this report. Unlike the 2016 and 2018, the 2012 primary was in May (remember that?), so that year the first week of early voting was a full first week. All the totals you see now are through the Friday of that year.
It’s been a long week and I don’t have it in me to do much analysis. I’ll have more tomorrow. Have you voted yet?