If early voting rates are an indicator of enthusiasm, 2018 elections are on way to being one of the most exciting midterms in recent history.
Analyses reveal that early voting for November 6 elections has surpassed 2014 levels in more than two dozen states.
The jump in early voting comes in the wake of a highly charged political environment, with Democrats eyeing a majority in the House and President Donald Trump using immigration as an issue to fire up his Republican base.
According to a CNN report citing Catalist, a data company compiling voter counts, two states, Kansas and West Virginia, have even exceeded early voter participation in the 2016 presidential election. Kansas has seen more than 25,000 early votes and West Virginia over 1,000.
Early voting has been soaring in the last few elections.
But quite significantly, early voters this year include a substantial number of first-time voters.
A CBS report says early voting totals in 27 states have exceeded total early votes in the 2014 midterm election, as per the University of Florida Elections Project.
But who will benefit from this upsurge in early voting? Obviously, a tough call to contemplate at this point.
The Democrats are expecting a Blue Wave of victories. On the other hand, President Trump is hoping to retain the GOP’s majority on the Capitol Hill with by framing immigration as a security issue and raising possibility of militarily confronting a caravan of asylum seekers on Mexican border.
Yet, some interesting trends point that Democrats might reap bigger number of votes.
“We’re seeing indications that younger people, persons of color are voting at higher rates relative to 2014,” Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida, told NPR.
McDonald cited the contest for Georgia governor, where the campaign for Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams worked to get African-Americans and other likely supporters to vote early by mail, according to the report.
“We could actually see that African-Americans were making up an unusually large proportion of the mail ballots in Georgia,” McDonald noted.
His findings and analysis indicate that voters from diverse communities – largely seen as pro-Democratic – and millennials are taking part in early ballots in a big way.
According to an NBC report, more than 24 million early votes have been cast .
And FOX News is also contemplating whether Democrats will actually do well in midterm elections.
But much will depend on the actual voter turnout on the election day, and how far the two parties have been able to sell their narratives on issues including allegations of sexual misconduct against at the time of hearing of Justice Kavanaugh and the implications of #MeToo movement.
At stake is the 435-member House of Representatives, which according to FiveThirtyEight website, is poised to go to Democrats with 193 clear cut seats for them as opposed to 132 for Republicans.
The voter turnout which is usually low for the midterm polls will be a key determinant on the standing of the parties, especially Democrats, who could not keep up the 2008 and 2012 election momentums in the 2016 presidential polls. Apart from Democrats having a record number of women candidates, mobilizing millennials, artists like Taylor Swift have also weighed in to stimulate midterm enthusiasm.
“In the last three decades, we’ve had about 40 percent of those eligible to vote participating in midterm elections. If we get in the upper end of that range, if we can beat the 1966 49-percent turnout rate, you’d have to go all the way back to 1914 to get a turnout rate above 50 percent,” McDonald said, according to CBS channel.
