We are a night away from Election Day and the early vote totals show Pennsylvania Democrats are nowhere near as enthused as they were in 2020. Republican enthusiasm to vote early is, however, matching 2020 levels.
According to the latest numbers dropped by the state of Pennsylvania, 997,450 Democrats have voted early compared to 578,546 Republicans. That gives Democrats a vote lead of 409,904.
That might sound great for Democrats, but it’s not.
In 2020, we are told Joe Biden defeated former President Trump by 1.2 points or roughly 81,000 votes in Pennsylvania out of almost seven million cast. Here’s the key number…
Back in 2020, Biden went into Election Day with a 1.1 million early vote lead over Trump — 1.638 million early votes to Trump’s 587,000. Granted, more mail will arrive in Pennsylvania before and on Election Day, but no honest broker believes Harris is not in serious trouble without an early vote firewall of at least 500,000. Even with that, she’s a long way from the 1.1 million cushion Biden had going into Election Day 2020. Democrats believe a 500,000 early vote lead only gives her a chance to pull off a win.
This is undoubtedly why Kamala Harris is spending her final campaign day in Pennsylvania and nowhere else. She had three events Monday.
No, we don’t know who these Republican, Democrat, and independent early voters are voting for. Could be that a lot of Republicans voted for Kamala. Could be a lot of Democrats voted for Trump. And heaven only knows who Pennsylvania’s 205,323 early-voting independents voted for. There are plenty of unknowns. But what we can safely say is this…
Democrat enthusiasm in Pennsylvania is not where it was four years ago.
People can argue that 2020 was a pandemic year, a year of early voting.
Well, that’s true, but let’s not forget that 1) Democrats are socialized to vote early, 2) Democrats are not coming out in numbers anywhere near 2020, and 3) Republicans are.
With only one day to go, Democrats have cast 640,550 fewer early votes than four years ago.
With one day left to go, Republicans are only behind 8,454 early votes compared to 2020.
This dynamic is not only happening in Pennsylvania. We’re seeing the same in North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona.
Again, we don’t know how these people are voting. We don’t know which way independents will go. We don’t know how much the early vote cannibalizes the same-day voting Republicans usually win by large margins. What we do know is that the enthusiasm to vote early is not where it was four years ago for Democrats, while the GOP early vote numbers continue to surprise everyone.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
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