CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
30%↑
15%↑
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
November 01, 2010 07:26 PM UTC
22 Comments
The best guess is that turnout will be maybe 1.8m, or somewhere under 2m, I’ve been told by a party person focused on such things. So that means early voting looks to be more than half the voting – impressive.
… but I believe I read (on Pols, last week) that in 2006 they had a 6% turnout advantage. So:
(1) On the plus side for Ds, increasingly it looks like there may be no massive R turnout wave, if with more than half the ballots counted the turnout gap is the same as 2006, a very good D yr.
(2) On the minus side for Ds, the persistence of a R registration edge means Bennet still needs some mix of R and unaffil voters — he needs (a) more Rs crossing over to him than Ds crossing over to Buck (likely, but not by much) and/or (b) to win unaffiliateds (likely, but not by much).
So as usual, the conclusion is, “who the hell knows.” Given the clear evidence it’s a jump ball, I’m completely unpersuaded by some of the lamer reasoning I’m hearing on both sides:
– Ds denying reality by saying “I can’t believe our state ever would vote for a crazy man like Buck” (the same reasoning Ds applied in the 1980, 2000, & 2004 presidential elections); and
– Rs saying “see, Buck has a polling edge of up to +5, and I discount all the polls showing ties or a 1-point race either way, so Buck clearly will win. Plus there’s a waaaaaave!”
Only in their dreams
It should have said 44%, instead of 41%. Still, this is no different than historic trends, where Republicans generally vote in higher numbers in absentee ballots.
All D’s vs All R’s
R’s up 5 points
Active D’s cs Active R’s
R’s up 3 points
But Bennet leads in votes cast.
As to Early voting under the current system, Dems have voted in higher numbers. Right now Republicans have cast 61,520 more votes than Dems. If you are right, that number goes down. If I am right it goes up. I think it ends up around 100K.
It’s very likely this roughly 5.7-point R-over-D turnout edge. So if almost all Ds & Rs vote party-line, Bennet will need to win unaffiliateds by 24 pts. That’s a tall order for Bennet, which is to say that Bennet needs more R support than Buck has D support, if Bennet is to win in the face of (a) a significant R turnout edge and (b) an unaffiliated population too small to decide an election.
So it’s illogical for Pols simultaneously to predict (a) Bennet will win (see the Big Line) and (b) “Unaffiliated voters are going to decide this election.” If the first prediction (Bennet winning) is to come true, it will mean a solid number of moderate Rs voted D. Which is to say that moderate Rs, more than unaffiliateds alone, “are going to decide this election.”
That all Democrats vote for the Democrat, and all Republicans vote for the Republican, which of course doesn’t happen. In 2006, Republicans voted at a clip 6 points more than Democrats, and Dems swept the field.
That it’s inaccurate to decare “unaffiliateds are going to decide this election” when the math shows — and you’re now implying we agree — that Bennet needs a decent number of R votes to win.
a lot of Republicans were voting for Democrats. That isn’t happening this year.
percentage of active voters who have voted already, but not the time to run the numbers.
and yet…
From a PPP poll:
Now wouldn’t you think the enthusiastic voters would have already, you know, voted? Clearly there’s an enthusiasm gap, but it seems to be going the wrong way.
This 5-6 point Bennet edge among those whovoted sounds awesome, but Reid has the same edge among early voters yet they’re still predicting a Reid loss based on election-day voters going for Angle by 10+ pts. I don’t really get that, but it tempers my optimism here.
Still, if (as Pols and I are arguing above) the key to Bennet’s victory is a some mix of R crossover support and unaffiliated support, then these early numbers are heartening because mathematically, they necessarily mean that among the roughly 50% of all voters who are voting early, Bennet is doing great at getting crossover Rs and unaffiliateds.
They believe Republicans will win among voters who show up at the polls on Tuesday, despite being pissed off for two years and itching to vote Democrats out of office. Fine, except why didn’t they already vote when they had the chance? Why procrastinate?
And considering how solidly everyone has been predicting Democratic losses, how motivated are people going to be to stand in line when they don’t think their votes are really needed?
… because we’re too busy trolling Michael Bennet’s facebook posts to vote now.” My GOTV activity will be to drive to Colorado Springs to do a rain dance there.
have already voted.
Last election, Dems led, not down by 50K plus, after early voting. At the end of the day Republicans cast about 38-39K more votes than Dems. So last cycle Republicans were the ones who showed up on election day.
No reason to think things will be different this year. There will be approximately 100K more Republicans voting than Dems.
We’ll keep saying it. Comparing 2008 to 2010 is pointless and irrelevant. Presidential election years are completely different than mid-term elections. Nearly 92% of active voters cast a ballot in 2008, but only 63% of those “actives” voted in 2006. This election will be much closer to 2006 than 2008, so whatever trends you saw two years ago will not translate to this election.
The difference between turnout in Presidential and non-Presidential elections is pretty evident in this graph that I made back in 2007 when I served on a citizen’s committee that was trying to estimate the number of voting machines we needed. It is somewhat dated (does not include 2008) but it’s good enough to illustrate the point.
The graph is for Mesa County only.
I am looking at when which party tends to turn out. In this case, under the current system, the republicans are the party that has turned out on election day, not the other way around.
Approx 2/3 of all votes are cast.
With 1/3 to go, perhaps R’s cast 30k more votes.
Bennet leads by 5 or 6 based on exit polls.
That 30k is going to have to got 100% for Buck and bring frends.
But you’re right- the polls all agree, (at least the fair and honest ones) Buck is in the bag.
Have a nice day, do whatever you do – check in around 7:30 or 8pm when the first release from SOS will come out. If we’re wrong and your guy needs more votes, make some calls and get the late rush tomorrow night or Wed morning.