Florida
Early in-person voting in FL has now officially ended. If you’re a FL Dem voter and haven’t sent in an absentee ballot, check county elections web site to figure out where to return it, or whether you can vote in person and return the form.
The latest Steve Schale memo is below. Here are a few highlights:
steveschale.squarespace.com/…
Trump is underperforming in a lot of his counties that are smaller, and has probably maxed out in places like Ft. Myers and the Villages. We’re over-performing and have more voters to bring on e-day because of the sheer number of unlikely voters who have cast ballots for us. On top of that, the NPA vote is growing, is more diverse than the state, and leans Dem.
Now, one thing that remains to be seen is the fluidity of the electorate. Thanks to the loss of Dixiecrats to the GOP, Dems have very few defections from our side. We have a higher realization rate on our registered voters than is typical in the South. We know from the Tom Bonier/TargetSmart poll that a number of registered GOP voters are voting for Hillary. A lot of Cuban Republicans are voting for HRC and Rubio. White female Republicans are quietly voting for HRC. How about the elderly? We know HRC has always outpolled Obama among the 45+ vote. Does she get an incrementally better percentage of older white voters who want stability in their stock portfolios and because older white women will gravitate to voting for someone in their demo?
I believe that we have a net positive crossover of GOP voters, which could result in us over performing the polling averages. Trump could have a big e-day and make it close and the FL GOP is pretty good at getting its vote out. But they’ve never had a party that was this divided over its nominee. You pay a price at the margins in situations like these and the TargetSmart poll gave an indication that the price could be dear. I am sticking with my standing prediction that HRC wins FL in a range of 300k to 500k votes, though I think more optimistic predictions have a reasonable probability of occurring.
NC
In NC, most of the polls have us ahead by a couple of points, save a SUSA outLIEr and a couple of Remington type polls. Obama never had such good polling in NC in either of his two runs for the Presidency. The Upshot published what I would consider to be a CYA memo, sharply narrowing the race to a tie and giving Trump a big edge among those yet to vote. Q, on the other hand, sees a slight uptick for HRC and has her at +3 overall and +12 in the NC EV.
- We have added at least 100k unlikely AA voters to the EV pool. We’ve added thousands more millennial and minority voters to the pool. These are unlikely voters, which means that we have more voters to bring on e-day.
- AA voters have been suppressed, but many of those folks are regular voters who will show up. They will help HRC offset a strong e-day turnout for Trump.
- There is less ticket splitting in NC up and down ticket. Given that we have about a +10 advantage right now, that favors our candidates to do the clean sweep.
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Over 60% of the electorate has voted in NC. If you look at these demos and compare to the last PPP poll (C+2), they compare favorably. If we get our remaining vote out in NC, we win. The burden is on Trump, not us.
Ohio
We had a few polls showing a +/- 1 race in OH, indicating that HRC has made a comeback and OH is a jump ball situation. TargetSmart has HRC +7 in the EV, but has Trump up overall 43-40. Tom Bonier notes that the Trump ‘lead’ is tenuous because women are 52% of the overall sample but 57% of the EV. If the electorate ends up at 54% or 55% female, HRC wins (in his view). I also happen to think that HRC’s margins among women will be higher than DT’s among men because white millennial, minority and union household men will have better margins for HRC.
Some other thoughts on OH:
- Based on polling, there is a big drop off between Portman and Trump. So, it stands to reason that Trump isn’t getting the support from Republicans or GOP leaning Indies that he needs to win. Dems will be behind HRC. That alone tells me that she is a good bet to win.
- The polling models have limited HRC’s vote because they assumed voter suppression. They assumed that HRC won’t get enough AA votes to win. I think we’re seeing with the determination of our folks to vote, and the campaign’s full court press on Cleveland, that we are going to get our vote out. It would be a bad bet to bet against the Democratic Party in Ohio. We haven’t gotten less than 47% of the vote in OH since 1992 (and we won that race). We’re going to bring it in OH. If Trump is gonna win it, he’s going to have to get a max turnout. He ain’t George W. Bush folks.
- The electorate in OH will be less white than the polling models suggest. In addition, the composition of that white vote will have more Dem friendly CEW voters and millennials than polls currently project.
- Female voters in some parts of the country seem much more guarded about their voting intentions. We’re seeing in the early vote polls that a lot of women are voting and they’re voting for her. I think that trend manifests itself in OH, not just in the EV, but in the e-day vote as well. That’s what Tom Bonier is hinting at.
- Union households are being underestimated as a source of support for HRC. That also limits the amount of white male support Trump gets.
- The energy and enthusiasm is on the Dem side. They rocked the early vote; we had a lot of high profile appearances; and the Comey thing today will help with the undecideds.
I look for HRC to bring in a big e-day vote and win OH outright. HRC 49 DT 45, GJ 4 Others 2. That 4 point spread might seem optimistic, but if you think about it, what Bonier is painting is a much more fluid electorate than we typically see in Ohio. In a fluid electorate, the candidate with late momentum and good organization picks up a boost, much like a primary race. HRC is the candidate with late momentum and a clearly good organization. That’s why I think she breaks through and wins.
1 more day to GOTV and 1 day to GOTV and vote. Let’s get it done!