Early Voting Shows Hillary Leading
Early voting edge in five key states, including Wisconsin. But oh, was that misleading.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Updated at 8:45, November 9: The online magazine Slate decided to try an experiment working with VoteCastr to report voting as it came in, and the results of its early vote estimates looked good for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. In a race where many states had high numbers of early voters, she was outdrawing voters who support Republican Donald Trump. As we now know, the early vote was quite misleading.
In Wisconsin, as Slate reported yesterday, the early vote numbers were as follows:
2016 Early Vote: 560,455 early votes, 18.3 percent of total votes cast in 2012
Clinton 295,302 early votes, 18.2 percent of Obama’s 2012 total vote total
Trump: 225,281 early votes, 16.0 percent of Romney’s 2012 total vote total
In 2012 Obama won, 52.8 percent to 46.1 percent. That’s almost exactly the margin Clinton has in this state’s early voting.
The higher numbers of early voters for Clinton suggested she had a stronger ground game. Indeed, in most states, Clinton crushed Trump when it came to the number of local field offices. And Slate also reported that in five other key states carried by Obama in 2012, four of them showed Clinton leading in early voting:
-In Florida, where the early vote was at nearly 42 percent of the votes cast in that state in 2012, Clinton led Trump by 2.8 percent.
-In Iowa, where the early vote equaled 35.6 percent of total votes cast in 2012, Clinton led by 4.9 percent.
-In Nevada, where the early vote totals exceeded 58 percent of the 2012 total, Clinton led by 1.2 percent.
-In Ohio where the early vote equaled nearly 24 percent of the 2012 vote, Clinton led by 3.9 percent.
-In Pennsylvania where the early vote was tiny, just 3.5 percent of the 2012 vote in that state, Trump was ahead by a whopping 7 percent.
-In Colorado, where the early vote exceeded 58 percent of its 2012 vote, Clinton led by 2.7 percent.
As it turned out, Trump carried Wisconsin, Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania, so the early voting wasn’t much of a predictor of who won. Only in Colorado and Nevada were the numbers a clue to what the ultimate vote would be. Instead the tiny early vote in Pennsylvania was more of a portent of things to come. In short, Slate may want to retire its first-of-a-kind approach, reporting voting as it was happening (and its later reports through the day yesterday, until the real results came in, were even more inaccurate).
Then again, all the pre-election polls and poll analysts (ah, Nate Silver, your crystal ball is no longer infallible) were almost uniformly wrong. In the real election, Trump voters came out in droves, upsetting all expectations and all poll analysts, all of whom had Clinton winning the popular vote by about two to three percent and the electoral vote handily. The political predictions business suddenly looks very questionable.
I can’t believe tomorrow morning I’m going to wake up in a country that will officially have elected either HRC or Trump to be president.
As far as these early voting numbers, I hate that they begin to put this stuff out there so early as it can influence the vote itself.
Not to mention it can be wrong. Remember 2004? Ear;y voting results had people declaring a Kerry victory.
I can’t believe people think HRC is as bad as Donald Trump.
Two turds in a toilet bowl. One grabs them by the pussy. The other states she left the White house dead broke and now is worth a $100 million dollars. (books and speaking fees???)
I’m surprised there has been no further election coverage. Are we going to see anything come down the line?
Hey I was right but wish I was wrong. UM staff is probably at a bar drowning their sorrows at the moment. The first black president is being succeeded by a man enthusiastically endorsed by white supremacists. America!
You all just have sour grapes, Trump is going to be the best president. I mean, look how he inspired his Waukesha faithful:
http://fox6now.com/2016/11/09/wisconsin-election-turnout-near-20-year-low/
Wisconsin election turnout near 20-year low
http://electionresults.waukeshacounty.gov/App_Data/CurrentResults.htm
Unofficial Results November 8, 2016
General Election
RUN DATE:11/08/16 10:58 PM Waukesha County WI
TOTAL PERCENT TOTAL PERCENT
01 = REGISTERED VOTERS – TOTAL 269,844 03 = BALLOTS CAST – BLANK 38
02 = BALLOTS CAST – TOTAL 240,417 04 = VOTER TURNOUT – TOTAL 89.09
01 02 03 04
0024 T Oconomowoc W10 18 . 24 . . 0 133.3
0053 V Menomonee Falls W12 647 . 655 . . 0 101.2
Credit to you, PMD, for calling that situation before hand!
But people thinking this had to do with racism and sexism are probably missing the real reasons Trump got voted in (and for the record, not by me)
I wish I could agree with that AG. Sure economic anxiety played a role, but so did immigration and banning Muslims, and race is central to those issues. Reporters at every one of his rallies noted the sexism openly expressed verbally or on T-shirts and other paraphernalia. And I don’t think the sexism is limited to Trump supporters. On a few cars I saw “Life’s a Bitch Don’t Vote For One” stickers next to Feel the Bern stickers. It’s naive and misguided to say race and sex weren’t major factors here. They might not be the only ones, but they are big ones.
Is it me, or is it weird that some of the wards have voter turnout in excess of 100% ?
I’m sure this will all be explained away once they release the official election returns and move those votes to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
Further election coverage: http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2016/11/09/eyes-on-milwaukee-15-election-winners-and-losers/
How did that work out.
One good thing about this (s)election, of the 3 candidates the Koch brothers and Putin were backing, only 1 won!