Trump Election 2020: Forward Leaning Early Voting (October 20, 2020)

Today is Tuesday October 20, 2020. 14 Days to Go.

This is not your average Election. Trump is NOT NORMAL. Everyone already knows that.

But we still count actual votes in America, not conspiracy theories, or authoritarian command fantasies.

And we have some reliable Data Guides. The Hot Spotlight is on and will stay on 24/7 until Tuesday after next.

Dr. Michael P. McDonald is an Election Data God.* He was in 2016 as well. He is a Master of What Is, not What Might Happen. He doesn’t get too forward over his skis. And damn is he fast to compile and report.

Michael McDonald’s United States Elections Project database, “2020 General Election Early Vote Statistics” is the first GoTo site to track the 2020 US Voter Tsunami as it develops.

As of 1 PM Central Time on October 20,2020

Voters have cast a total of 35,188,719 ballots in the reporting states**

Nationally, voters have cast 25.4% of the total votes counted in the 2016 general election

Voters have requested a total of 83,688,443 ballots in the reporting states

Now for some context.

Courtesy of McDonald’s prior work, in 2016, the total Final Early (Advance) Voting numbers were:

Total Early Votes: 47,242,753
Early in-Person Votes: 23,024,146
Early Mail In Votes Returned: 24,218,607
Early Mail In Ballots requested: 35,209.256

2016 Total Final Vote for US President: 136,753,936

There is a second easily accessible grand data source on 2020 Early Voting, “TargetEarly2020”

This website is a little slower to report, but has some heightened graphical perspectives.

On October 20, 2020 its daily top line summary is

Nationally, voters have cast 21.6% of the total votes counted in the 2016 general election.

At least 29,468,326 voters have cast ballots in the 2020 general election.

In Presidential Battleground States, voters have cast 29.2% of the total votes counted in the 2016 general election.

At least 17,785,722 voters have cast ballots in these states in the 2020 general election.

Presidential Battleground States: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin

Visit both sites often in the days to come. There is an enduring American fascination with Election Polls. Americans are inveterate odds followers. We love to imagine, project, and anticipate the bet.

These sites take a different tack. They are 2020 history, not near-term future prediction. They are cold hard reality, not error prone sampling.

They are a bracing complement to the standard polling resources like FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics.

One could almost view them as a Presidential Daily Racing Form updating in Real Time.

Note Bene: Both these sites have impressive statistical substructure and detail. Always refer to the complete descriptions, caveats, and limitations, particularly with respect to individual states and the changing operations of each of the 50 glorious states individual voting regulations and early voting reporting policies, which in their entirety will flat out Blow Your Mind, Baby. Not to mention when State governments, Federal and State Courts insist on monkeywrenching major rules even at this late date.

That said:

We can still indulge a little horseracing prognostication in advance of Tuesday November 3^rd, a Modern American Day of Reckoning.

In 2016, Early Voting accounted for 34.5% of the final total votes cast. Of that number, 48.7% was In Person voting, and 51.3% was Mail In voting. And 68.8% of Mail In Ballots requested were returned for counting.

According to McDonald’s 2016 data, based on those states that supplied results by Party Affiliation for Advance Voting: Democrats comprised 42.0%, Republicans 34.5%, and Other Parties 22.2%. These results included 23,268,718 or 49.3% of all Early Votes cast in that election.

In 2020 voters have cast 35.2 million early votes so far, already reaching 74.5% of their 2016 effort, with 14 days to go. The total at 11 AM yesterday was 29.65 million, an increase of 5.55 million in the last 24 hours. And the rate of increase is accelerating just now.

Each 500,000 votes added in 2020 represents approximately a 1% increase from the final total in 2016. 5.5 million votes in 24 hours is an 11% in the entire 2016 Early Voting total. Hang on to your Ever-loving Hats, America!

Those are facts, not Predictions, or Campaign Spin Thinking.

In 2016, the final ratio of Mail In to In Person Early Voting was fairly close (51.3% vs. 48.7%), a 2.6% difference. So far in 2020, the ratio is way out there at more than 6 to 1, or 85.9% Mail In versus 14.1% In Person, based on state reported data available for about half of all Early Votes cast so far. The Good News for Republicans is that this gap is very likely to narrow, though you would have to be a Cock-Eyed Optimist to expect it to achieve rough parity (only a 2.6% difference) by Election Day.

Naturally this deviating inflection is largely Pandemic caution related, along with a major push (mainly by Democrats) to encourage mass mail in balloting for safety & health protection reasons. The Republicans are of a split mind on the matter. GOP voters traditionally largely prefer to cast their votes in person, early or on election day.

Earlier this year the RNC started out to encourage greater use of mail In Ballots in 2020, but Trump.45’s unceasing and bombastic campaign against Mail In Votes has perhaps produced a potential brand-new category of Shy Trump Voters. No Mail In, May Just Stay At Home. Now there’s a Bet for the Hardy. With a slanted early peek at the incoming numbers, the Democratic Bid to focus heavily on Mail In Ballots is looking pretty good.

Given the increasing severity of US COVID-19 cases in the final two weeks of October, it does not seem at all likely there will be an overwhelming new rush to Vote in Person from hereon out. That Pandemic Corner may be just a Bit Too Far Away for Trump.45’s benefit.

Thus far, with the limited data known about In Person Early Voting party affiliation, the Republicans are trailing 8 points behind Democrats (35% vs 43%), with Unassigned at 20%. That is actually better than Republican Mail In performance where they are currently In the Dust at 24% to Democrats’ 55%.

Overall for total 2020 Early Voting types combined, Republican lag Democrats 24% to 53%. In 2016 (more normal times) Democrats led 42% to 35% at the end of Early Voting. If Republicans don’t seriously step up their In Person voting pace well before Election Day itself, they have no realistic chance to make up the deficit they are building each day forward.

I don’t know how much more early voting will occur during the next 13 days, but if it is about 5 million total new votes per day, that would add 65 million more Early Votes to the current total of 35 million, for an astounding total of roughly 100 million early votes for 2020.

In 2016 there were a total of 136.7 million votes cast, almost 90 million on Election Day Itself. It is easy to imagine that the actual vote on election day might be only about 60 million this year (a drop of 33%) due to Pandemic concerns. Even so, that might still result in a Total Presidential Vote of 160 Million, by far the most in US History.

US Elections Project calculates that the US VAP (Voting Age Population) in November 2020 is 257.6 million. If 160 million votes should be cast and counted cast in 2020 , that would mark a National Voter Turnout Rate of 62.1%.***

Here is the list of Presidential Vote Turnout figures (computed with VAP) since 1932. Only four times has turnout exceeded 60%: 1952, 1960, 1964, and 1968. Two of the four were electoral blowouts from both popular vote and electoral vote majority perspectives (1952 and 1964). Two of the four were closely fought (1960 and 1968) in popular votes (both less than 50 % but highest vote totals), with moderate electoral vote wins. Eisenhower and Johnson won by more than 10 points each and MARGINS of 353 and 434 electoral votes respectively.****

The most voter engaged US Presidential election in the last 100 years was Kennedy-Nixon in 1960, where turnout was 62.8%. If 2020 turnout reaches 160 million, this Election will rank as the second most democratically engaged Presidential election in modern history. Based on four prior examples, there is a 50/50 chance of a major blowout. The alternative is a popular vote squeaker. *****

No Presidential Election in the last 50 years (since 1972, including Reagan) has engaged more than 55% of the US voting populace, except Obama in 2008 (57.1%). 2020 looks like it may set the new modern record. This Year, the People Will Be Heard.

That would also be a further 15% vote increase over 2016, which now has the highest vote count in US History. It seems hard to imagine that a major increase in number of votes cast would help Republicans or Trump, as they have exerted every effort, political, financial and legal to restrict voter access, most particularly in Swing States and among minority and urban communities, even to the current hour. It seems plain that a primary strategy for them is to aim for a low vote count, just enough to snatch an Electoral College squeaker. 15% more votes nationwide than 2016 is distinctly an unpalatable menu choice for Trump.45.

He would rather have 10% fewer votes, the loss concentrated in half a dozen chosen locations. Free Exercise of the Voting Franchise is not a Red Recipe for Victory in 2020.

What does TargetSmart add to this meditation? Their partisan breakdown of 29.5 million total Early Votes as of today, shows Democrats at 51.6% and Republicans at 38.3%. Considering just Swing States, the reported partisan breakdown is Democrats 48.8% and Republicans 40.4%. These numbers are better for Republicans (and from a 10% modestly larger sample) than McDonald’s.

The less dark spot is that Republican performance through October 20 in the Swing States is 2% better than Nationally, though still no better than 40%. On the other hand, their up to date performance in Swing States is down 2% from 2016, and maybe even more worryingly down almost 9% from their 2018 Congressional wipeout.

Voters have requested 83.7 million Mail In ballots this year, and in some states the deadline has not passed, though time is waning. So, another relevant factor is return rate. As of today, the overall return rate is already 26%. Here again the Republicans are lagging Democrats, though by about 7%. Except that Democrats have requested 10 million more Mail In Ballots than Republicans thus far, so that while the current disadvantage in Actual Mail In Votes is 4.34 million, that lead could increase still further before Election Day.

The 2016 Mail In Ballot return rate in 2016 was 69%. If another 43% of outstanding Mail In Ballots are returned at similar rates to those already counted, depending on how Shy Trump Syndrome affects Republicans’ mail in behavior, that could add another 7.0 million Democratic votes, but around 4.34 million Republican tallies.

The Popular Vote Difference in 2016 was plus 2.87 million for the Democrats. 2020 Mail In Early Voting alone could yield an Election Morning Democratic Advantage of as much as 7.21 million votes, based on partial numbers as of October 20, if the current trends continue so favorably.

That is some damn Mighty Tall Hill to climb with Door Knocking and the Republican Ground Game and Digital Targeting in a Time of Pandemic.

All of which is to say, I’d rather be on the Blue Team than the Red Team today. Two weeks left at the end of an Election, when times warps so much more slowly for the Leader, can feel like an eternity. There are nasty tricks ahead, we know not yet what they are.

Still, if Republicans are Confident of Victory today, they are jointly and heavily smoking potent Aromatic Herbs together.

*From United States Elections Project Bio:

Dr. Michael P. McDonald is Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from University of California, San Diego and B.S. in Economics from California Institute of Technology. He held a one-year post-doc fellowship at Harvard University and previously taught at Vanderbilt University; University of Illinois, Springfield; and George Mason University.

His research interests are in the areas of elections and methodology. His voter turnout research shows that turnout is not declining, the ineligible population is rising. He is a co-principle investigator on the Public Mapping Project, a project to encourage public participation in redistricting. He is co-author with Micah Altman of The Public Mapping Project: How Public Participation Can Revolutionize Redistricting; co-author with Micah Altman and Jeff Gill of Numerical Issues in Statistical Computing for the Social Scientist, and is co-editor with John Samples of The Marketplace of Democracy: Electoral Competition and American Politics. His research appears in several edited volumes and in scholarly journals including American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Behavior, Political Analysis, Political Geography, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, PS: Political Science and Politics, Sociological Methods and Research, Social Science Computing Review, The Election Law Journal, Política y Gobierno, and the law review journals of New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy, Duke J. Constitutional Law and Public Policy, University of Richmond Law Review, Case Western Law Review and the Georgetown Law Review.

On the practical side of politics, Dr. McDonald has worked for the national exit poll organization; consulted to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission; consulted to the Pew Center for the States; served on campaign staff for state legislative campaigns in California and Virginia; has worked for national polling firms; has been an expert witness for election lawsuits in Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Washington; and has worked as a redistricting consultant or expert witness in Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia. He has worked as a media consultant to the Associated Press, ABC, and NBC, and is frequently quoted in the media regarding United States elections. His opinion editorials have appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, The Politico, The Hill, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, The American Prospect, and Roll Call.

2016 November General Election

2020 November General Election Turnout Rates

** These are complex matters involving 50 independent state election systems without central coordination and disparate local operating rules. Always read the fine print carefully as there are many combinations of reporting transparency. That said, these guys are among the very best. And the Damn Federal Government which ought to be right on top of this for providing citizen oversight information is AWOL with prejudice. Anyway, approach any conclusions and data summations with due caution. Caveat Emptor.

***US Elections Project calculates that the US VEP (Voting Eligible Population) in November 2020 is 239.2 million. If 160 million votes are cast in 2020 , that would mark a National Voter Turnout Rate of 66.9%. McDonald believes the VEP is a more accurate denominator for calculating voter election turnout, but many other standard sources, including Wikipedia use VAP. For historical comparisons, above we use VAP.

****Remember all that bogus crap Trump.45 continually spouts about his Greatest Election Victory. Both Eisenhower and Johnson beat their opponents by more Electoral Votes than Trump received in total.

*****I find it hugely ironic that of the four most democratically contested Presidential Elections in our lifetimes, three involved Richard Nixon as winning Vice-Presidential candidate (1952), losing Presidential Candidate (1960), and winning Presidential Candidate (1968).

Perhaps it makes some curiously appropriate Cosmic Sense that the most divisive politician in prior American history seems directly channeled to Trump.45 in this election. Trump.45 will, I have little doubt, replace Nixon as most excoriated American politician of the last century. Nixon had the honor and grace to resign when faced with inevitable impeachment for his political crimes in order to preserve the institution intact; Trump.45 lacking any self-awareness or self-reflection insisted on joining the Impeachment Train for only the 3^rd time in history.