Various early voting numbers in key swing states that will ultimately decide the election are showing good results for the campaign of Mitt Romney as he hopes to defeat pro-abortion President Barack Obama.
Ohio, the make of break state in the election, looks good from the Romney perspective, as one reported tweeted this morning:
Overall, early vote turnout OH up 2.44% in state. Down -4.1% in Obama/Kerry counties; up 14.39% in Bush/McCain counties.
Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has released early voting numbers from the state – and they look excellent for Mitt Romney.
According to those numbers, Republican turnout was 688,303; Democratic turnout was 653,450. Some 547,437 unaffiliated voters also voted early. That puts the Republican advantage in early voting at R+3. Back in 2008, Colorado early voting put Democrats up by 1.8%. That’s a huge swing for Mitt Romney.
Florida numbers are also looking good for the Romney campaign, according to analysis from Jim Geraghty of National Review:
One of my key counties to watch tonight is Volusa County, Florida, northeast of Orlando. In 2008, Obama carried the county, 52.19 percent to 46.53 percent for John McCain.
The early vote in Volusa is concluded. Registered Democrats made up 44.8 percent of the early votes (27,123 votes) and registered Republicans made up 33.3 percent (20,156 votes). Independent/other made up 21.7 percent (13,152 votes.)
Before you panic, back in 2008, the split was much wider in favor of Obama (and the early-vote totals were much higher as well).
Four years ago, registered Democrats made up 52.3 percent of the early voters (35,902 votes) and Republicans made up just 26.8 percent (18,424 votes), with independents making up 20.8 percent (14,304 votes). In short, the registered-Democrat early vote dropped by 8,779 votes and the registered-Republican early vote increased by 1,732 votes.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says the numbers he has seen show the state is headed towards the Romney column.
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Cuccinelli wrote to supporters and declared that Republican-leaning areas have seen an increase in early voting from 2008, while localities which Obama won in 2008 have seen declines in their early voting totals from 2008.
These early voting numbers — and Cuccinelli’s analysis — indicate that Obama would need turnout to match or surpass that of 2008 and to win independent voters if he is to win on Election Day. Nearly every poll shows Romney leading among independents in Virginia, and Democrats will likely not have the six-point advantage they had at the polls in 2008.
Cuccinelli observed that “in 2008, over 506,000 absentee votes were cast,” and Republicans lost to Democrats by 28 points (64% – 36%), which was about a 150,000 vote margin.
Obama won the state by six points in 2008. Cuccinelli notes that Republicans lost Virginia in 2008 by 235,000 votes, so the absentee margin was half of Obama’s total margin of victory four years ago. As of Friday, there were 357,000 absentee votes cast, which is barely over 70% of 2008’s numbers.
“That’s bad for them,” Cuccinelli wrote. “Hopefully, it gets worse.”
