Obama Campaign: Early Voting Stats Put Us In Strong Position To Win

[RedEarth]

On a conference call with reporters just now, in which the Obama campaign laid out a cautious but very optimistic picture of the campaign as it now stands, they also announced some amazing figures about early voting -- showing the Dems translating their advantage in voter registrations into a real advantage in banked voted.

In key swing states like Colorado and North Carolina, more registered Democrats are casting early votes than registered Republicans. Democrats now make up 56% of the early vote in North Carolina, compared to 48% back in 2004. Registered Dems now lead the early vote in Colorado with a 39% plurality, compared to a 42% Republican plurality in 2004. And though they started out behind, the Dems are on track to overtake the Republicans in Florida early voting on Monday.

Obama field director Jon Carson anticipated the obvious skeptical argument: That the early voters don't really change anything, because those people would have otherwise showed up on Election Day anyway. Carson then focused on a different number, of "new Democrats" and "new Republicans" -- that is, people who are either newly-registered voters or voted only sporadically in the past.

And the early votes from new Democrats are leading the votes from new Republicans. For example, 40% of all early Democratic votes in Nevada have come from new Dems, versus only 30% of GOP early votes from new Republicans.

"A higher percentage of our vote is new Democrats," Carson said, "and we have a lot more new Democrats."

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/