An independent analysis of early voting indicates that late arriving ballots are trending Democratic, adding to President Barack Obama’s desperately needed early vote advantage in critical battleground states.
In 2008, Obama won four battleground states because he dramatically outpaced John McCain in early voting. While Obama has maintained a lead in early voting in most states this year, Mitt Romney and the Republican Party made early voting a high priority.
But Obama may have gained early voting momentum in recent days.
All indicators last week pointed to scenarios in Florida, Ohio and North Carolina where Romney was well situated to overtake Obama in Election Day voting — possibly offsetting any of the president’s early vote advantage.
But McDonald says that there are too many complicated variables still in play to predict what will happen. Chief among them is how many voters actually show up.
In 2008, Obama was 21 percentage points ahead of McCain in North Carolina early voting, and so even though McCain won the balloting on Election Day, he narrowly lost the state. Yesterday, Obama’s early lead was down to 16 percentage points, leaving him less wiggle room.
Early voting is also playing a role in what is shaping up as 2012’s biggest prize and biggest potential nightmare: Ohio. Nearly one-third of Ohio’s electorate has already voted — 1.8 million ballots have been cast — with a recent CNN-ORC poll showing the president with a hefty advantage, 63
Source:The Daily Star
