Early Voting Doesn't Favor Either Party

Both political parties are urging their own people to vote early and both hope that early vote will give them an advantage come election day.   One of the best voting prognosticators, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com and the New York Times, says it depends on the state and whether that state is a red or blue state.   But a new poll by the Gallup organization shows that neither party seems to be gaining an edge in early voting.

Gallup did a random survey of 1,364 registered voters from October 21st through 24th that shows roughly equal numbers of Republicans, Democrats and Independents are voting early. The survey has a 3% margin of error.   Here is what their survey showed:

REPUBLICANS
Already voted...............13%
Will vote early...............15%
Will vote on election day...............63%
Don't know...............9%

INDEPENDENTS
Already voted...............9%
Will vote early...............19%
Will vote on election day...............61%
Don't know...............12%

DEMOCRATS
Already voted...............9%
Will vote early...............14%
Will vote on election day...............65%
Don't know...............11%

The poll shows the Republicans with a slight early vote lead, but since there are more registered Democrats than Republicans the whole thing looks virtually equal.   It does clearly show one thing though -- all groups (Republicans, Independents, Democrats) are interested in this election.   The "enthusiasm gap" once held by the Republicans seems to have disappeared.

Meanwhile, here in Texas the early voting totals are still sharply up over the early voting totals for the last off-year election in 2006.   Here are the totals for the 15 most populous counties through 9 of the 12 early voting days.   The percentage of registered voters is in parentheses.

Harris..........295,305 (15.24%)
Dallas..........140,819 (12.29%)
Tarrant..........104,355 (11.14%)
Bexar..........129,860 (14.34%)
Travis..........86,438 (14.30%)
Collin..........55,505 (13.07%)
El Paso..........26,908 (7.09%)
Denton..........41,502 (11.38%)
Fort Bend..........54,741 (17.71%)
Hidalgo..........36,108 (12.18%)
Montgomery..........44,941 (17.98%)
Williamson..........36,330 (15.28%)
Nueces..........22,848 (12.05%)
Galveston..........35,288 (19.30%)
Cameron..........14,725 (8.45%)

Total for 2010..........1,125,673 (13.50%)

Total for 2006..........662,324 (8.14%)

That's a 69.96% rise in early voting in 2010 over 2006 (for the first 9 of 12 voting days).