It’s about that time.
I’ll use this entry of D&D to share the “Zachary Election Season BLOG” which you can access at tinyurl.com/zd2024 for the next few weeks. You can get access to my thoughts in a pretty live fashion from this doc before, during, and after Election Night.
I’ll attach today’s entry below for a taste of the insightful and concise updates I’ll be sharing the next couple weeks.
10/22
Republicans are ripping the roof off in early voting. Disregard most early voting discourse, but I have the good stuff. The trick is to stratify by past turnout, which can be done effectively in states like Arizona and Nevada. Republican early vote turnout is high in both the Sun Belt and Rust Belt, which was largely expected, though perhaps not at this magnitude. Two key questions arise from this data regarding how much it increases Trump’s chance to win: (a) will this surge continue through the rest of the early voting period? There's already some indication it may have been a first-week phenomenon that has already tapered off in today’s data; and (b) how much of this early voting strength is simply cannibalizing GOP Election Day votes? While this is typically the case, the data still looks strong for Republicans even after accounting for recent voting history in AZ/NV (GOP beating Dems with lower propensity voters). Although this is clearly a positive sign for Republicans, it still doesn’t push Trump’s odds much past 60% in my mental priors. It’s important to remember that just two years ago, Republicans had an even stronger turnout nationwide than what we’ll see in 2024, yet Democrats still managed to win Senate races in key states through persuasion.
Why would Republicans have a higher turnout in midterms than in general? That seems the reverse of normal.