Final Early Vote Post
2024 Looking A Lot Like 2020, except maybe...
Both state and local numbers are below, but let’s stop and make some distinctions about the Presidential race first:
WHAT WE KNOW
In 2020, Joe Biden won Georgia’s early (and absentee) vote by a margin of 229,920.
In that same election, Donald Trump won election day voting by 218,141.
Biden won in 2020 by 11,779 votes, about 0.2% of the vote.
Just short of 5 million Georgians voted for President in 2020.
The 2024 early vote is running about 3% higher than the 2020 early vote.
More Republicans have voted early and absentee this time than 4 years ago. Locally, about 9% higher. Democrats are less than 1% higher.
About 23% of 2024 early voters are new voters (did not vote in 2020 in GA at all)
CONCLUSIONS BASED UPON THE ABOVE: We can conclude that Harris leads Trump in early voting, but that her lead should be smaller than Biden’s 2020 EV lead. Trump’s election day lead should therefore be smaller as well versus his 2020 margin, and the total number of Georgia voters will be a bit over 5 million due to population growth, and could go a bit higher if the 2024 voter participation rate matches or exceeds 2020’s (or a bit lower if it doesn’t.) Roughly 80% of Georgians who are going to vote for President HAVE ALREADY VOTED.
ARE WE SEEING ALL OF THE ABOVE? Possibly no. I’ve been saying for a week or more now that Harris seems to have a larger lead over Trump than Biden did in 2020 instead of a smaller one. I estimate around 50,000 votes higher than 2020. Other analysts and indicators have suggested that Harris is doing better as well. IF that turns out to be true, then it follows that newer and more independent voters, along with some segment of Republican voters, seemingly women, have broken in favor of Harris, and Trump’s capacity to make up that difference on election day has diminished from 2020.
EXPECTATION: The final vote will be close, less than 1% margin, quite possibly less than 0.5%, and to quote Simon Rosenberg — I’d rather be us than them!
LOCAL NUMBERS: Ratio of Democratic to Republican voters as labeled by my scoring method is 19-80-1. This is 1% less than 2020, which tracks with the increase in Republican voters, BUT the actual Presidential vote split may be a little bit higher, due to more Republicans crossing over than usual. I don’t think that effect will be big in Dade, maybe 1%, which would put the EV at 20-79-1. In 2020, Biden received 17% of the vote, so if Harris receives 17-18% this time, we could consider that a relative gain (meaning our % went up, but the margin of votes R:D became larger due to slightly more people voting). If VP Harris receives around 18 to 19%, which is our target goal, that would be an absolute gain (both % and margin working in our favor.) Higher than 19% is just more icing on the cake. About 74% of expected voting Dade Countians have already done so.
CONGRESSIONAL RACE: If VP Harris comes in around 18-20%, what does that mean for Shawn Harris? We know that Shawn will get a higher percentage than the Vice President. That percentage most likely will be somewhere between 4-12%. If Shawn Harris comes in around 30% in Dade, he’s gotten what he needs from our county. We’re the smallest county in the district, and all he needs to do here is cut into the margins a bit. The same goes for other northern counties. If Shawn is to win, he’ll win the race in Cobb, Paulding, Floyd, and by having a large enough Hispanic vote come out for him in Whitfield County. All other counties, including Dade, just need to have their Republican margins eaten into by around 10%.