turnout

People Voting Early. . . Just Not in West MoCo

Today’s Early Vote Takeaways:

  • Early Vote is Very Stable.
  • Democrats will Start Gaining from EV Tomorrow.
  • Western Montgomery Epicenter of Low Turnout.

EVGraph

Black = All, Blue = D, Red= R, Purple = Unaffiliated

Stability is the Story

Early voting remained highly stable on Day 6, rising just a bit over Day 5. The rate of Democratic turnout continues the trend of rising at a miniscule rate above Republican turnout. Right now, 6.04% (122,996) of registered Democrats have voted as compared to 5.97% (56,675) of Republicans and 2.59% (17,030) of the unaffiliated have cast ballots.

The number of registered voters who have voted early in 2014 equals 90.5% of the 2010 total across all days. The total number of Democrats who voted early in 2014 is 87.6% of 2010. The similar figures are 96.8% for Republicans and 93.0% for the unaffiliated. The higher GOP number reflects that they have virtually closed the gap in turnout with Democrats from 2010.

Democrats will Start Gaining Tomorrow

Total early voting turnout should exceed that of 2010 tomorrow. At that point Democrats will start to benefit from the ramp up in early voting despite the lost of their advantage in the rate of turnout. Due to their dominance, Democrats will extend their raw vote advantage over the Republicans.

Here are the Day 6 early vote and absentee totals by county:

early6

But Not as Much as They Might

The gap in turnout between high and low turnout counties continues to grow with the big three Democratic counties all lagging more and more behind the high turnout counties. Except for Howard, I expect every county above the state average in turnout to vote for Hogan. Charles, the only other solid Brown county, is also below the red line.

Western Montgomery Epicenter of Low Turnout

Turnout in Montgomery is especially abysmal, particularly on the west side of the County. Outside of portions of Allegany and Washington Counties, the four legislative districts in western Montgomery have the lowest early voting turnout rates in the State:

2.13% in District 15 (Potomac to Poolesville),
2.20% in District 16 (Bethesda),
2.59% in District 17 (Rockville-Gaithersburg),
2.05% in District 39 (Clarksburg-Germantown-Mont. Village).

Lt. Gov. Brown seems tailor made to appeal to the liberal voters who predominate in this part of the world. Yet, these levels are between 34% and 42% of the statewide rate. The mystery is even greater because education is usually heavily related to turnout and these districts have among the highest share of college graduates and people with graduate degrees in the country.

In short, these are exactly the sort of core Democratic voters that Brown needs to turn out. No wonder he spent yesterday morning at the Bethesda Metro Station greeting people as they entered the escalators. (P.S. Anyone who really fixes these perpetually under construction behemoths would get my vote.)

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