Un vistazo al voto temprano

ABC News:

More than 29.8 million ballots have already been cast via early and absentee voting, with the early vote expected to make up about 35 percent of the total votes cast, an increase from 2008, when 30 percent of the total vote was cast before Election Day.

(...) Republicans and Democrats claim to be winning the early vote, and they both stand on solid ground from which to back up their assertions.

In short, Democrats have the numerical advantage in the vote count. In all but one key battleground state – Colorado – registered Democrats have cast more ballots than registered Republicans (Republicans have a slight edge in Colorado).

But Republicans have made much bigger gains in getting out the early vote since 2008 than their Democratic opponents. Take a look at the key battleground state of Nevada, for example, where early and absentee voting made up about 67 percent of the total votes cast in the state in 2008.

Democrats outperformed Republicans in early voting that year by a little less than 12 percentage points, 47.6 percent of the early votes cast came from registered Democrats, while 35.8 percent came from registered Republicans. This year, that gap has narrowed to roughly 7 points, with registered Democrats accounting for 43.9 percent of the votes cast already, and Republicans making up 37 percent, according to figures from the United States Election Project.

In Florida in 2008, registered Democrats cast 44.9 percent of the early votes, while registered Republicans only cast 37.9 percent. This year, that gap is down as well. Registered Democrats have accounted for 42.6 percent of the early vote, registered Republicans 39.5 percent.

Across the board, in 2008, Democrats held an 11 percentage point advantage over Republicans going into Election Day in the battleground states where party registration was available, but this year, that gap has been cut down to about a 6 point advantage, according to one GOP official.

(...) The key Midwestern states that permit in-person early voting – Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin – do not register by party affiliation, so it is impossible to make any definitive statement about which party is ahead in the vote count.

(...) The take-away from these early vote numbers at the end of the day points to the same point analysts, pollsters and both campaigns have been saying all along: The race is tight and the outcome, whatever it is, will likely be very close.