Sarah Palin was selected to excite the Republican base, and it has worked to some degree. But, in the battle for an energized base, the McCain campaign has lost, and lost extremely badly. You can see it in the early voting numbers out of North Carolina:
Statewide, 214,000 voters braved hours-long lines to cast their ballots on the first two days of early voting. So far, the numbers have clearly favored Democrats. Some 62 percent of voters who have cast a ballot in early voting are registered with the party. Only 22 percent are registered Republicans. By comparison, about 46 percent of all registered voters in the state are declared Democrats, while 32 percent are with the GOP.
And in Georgia:
Statewide, almost 635,800 had voted by the end of Thursday, most of them in person, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. Almost 36 percent of those voting in advance by mail or in person are African-American.
The electorate of Georgia is only 29% black (up from 27% in 2004). I may do some county analysis of the early Georgia vote soon, but the pro-Democratic county of DeKalb (Atlanta) has already seen a turnout that represents 23% of the total votes cast in 2004. Republican-leaning counties in the Atlanta suburbs have seen much less early turnout (Cobb Co., 12.3%, Gwinnett Co., 14.2%). To get an idea of what this means, Dekalb county went for Kerry 73%-26%, while Cobb went to Bush 62%-37%, and Qwinnett went to Bush 66%-33%. Chatham Co. (Savannah) split the 2004 vote 50%-50%, but it has a large black population and will tilt Obama’s way this year. It has already seen turnout equivalent to 21% of the 2004 vote.
Pollsters have to guess about the demographic makeup of the electorate and weight their polls accordingly. Early voting is an indicator of enthusiasm, and it’s clear that in these two southern states, Obama has an enormous advantage. But, McCain’s voters may eventually show up, even if it is not until election day. When the counting is over, blacks will not make up 36% of the electorate in Georgia, and registered Democrats will not make up 62% of the North Carolina electorate. But that’s where things stand today. Obama has a huge lead in both states. More importantly, as his voters cast their votes he can cross them off the list and focus on mobilizing an ever-shrinking number of voters. McCain still has the bulk of his voters to drag to the polls.
Don’t be shocked if McCain doesn’t get it done.
Need about 31% of the electorate to be comprised of black folks in Georgia to have a real shot. Then he’s got to get about 30% of the non-black vote (keeping in mind that Latinos are not an insignificant group there and have a large presence in places like South Fulton). If black turnout surges through election day and even comes close to 35%, he’ll probably win it.
I think 4-7% of voters in Georgia are Latinos, but I could be wrong.
I also think these numbers we’re seeing among white folks are hiding a wider current margin for Obama. We’re all working on the assumption for now that Obama’s carrying about 25-30% of them. It’s probably a good bit higher. The whites voting in DeKalb, Fulton and Cobb are going to be a lot more likely to be Obama people than the ones in a hard-right county like Gwinnett, but even in Gwinnett we’re probably seeing more Obama Whites turn out so far than we’d guess based on 2004 Kerry Whites.
So Georgia, I’m betting, looks pretty damned good right now.
North Carolina is going crazy so far. I think I read black folks were running at 32-35% of the electorate, compared with 18-19% in 2004. That’s stunning. And, again, the 62% Dem figure suggests that the kids and liberal whites are showing up too.
Lookin’ good in Dixie.
Don’t be surprised if he Obama wins Georgia, that’s all I gotta say–and don’t be surprised if SC is close, either. I believe if he wins GA, NC and Virginia, then he’ll win damn near everywhere else.
My nieces’ Mom lives in NC and she sent me a text message after she voted on Thursday. She said it was worth the wait–I’m gonna call and get her take on things, how long the wait was, etc.
Georgia has been my “Surprise, Suckaz!” pick all year, although I gave some thought to Tejas early on.
I’d be only mildly surprised by a win there. The math has made sense to me from Day One. I think, more so than any other state, that’s the one I’d like to win. NC and VA are southern states, but they don’t quite get that Deep South hit, being more of the high-class (English) Upper South, and I want at least one from the deep Deep South.
Plus, my cousin — the one liberal in all of Ila, Ga, I think — is really fighting hard for Obama. Rest of the family can’t stand him for it, since they’re all racist asses. (He is too, but he’s a Dem and liked Obama immediately for reasons we’ve never fully understood.) So I’d like to see the smile on his face if Obama wins there.
Mmmhmm. Georgians, South Carolinians–they are southerners. Those from the Commonwealth are Virginians and they don’t let you forget it. 🙂 Virginians are snobs, what can I say?
[ducks] But I’m from Virginia! [ducks again]
🙂
Seriously though, I’d love to see him get GA. That would be great!
BTW, your cousin doesn’t surprise me. At all. The rap on southern whites is that they don’t like Blacks as a whole but can be VERY nice to some individual Blacks, and I’ve seen this myself. (The flip side is that non-Southern whites believe in equality in theory but will personally have nothing to do w/ Blacks.)
It’s very odd. I had white girlfriends whose parents were so nice to me–we’d go to each others homes, their parents would ask about mine, the whole nine–but don’t let them bring home a black boy. And we all knew and kept those secrets if we had to. Sad, but true. And that was–gulp–nearly 20 years ago.
Nah, it’s not that he doesn’t like black folks. He just talks shit. And we’ll say to him, “Come on, Jerry, you shouldn’t say that stuff,” and he’ll say, “Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.” We’re slowly getting him to cut it out. His heart’s in the right place, just gotta sort his mouth out, and it’s a matter of dealing with decades and decades of his vocabulary being solidified to speak that way.
Tough to explain, but you know what I mean.
It looks more and more as if that scum Chambliss will be dragged down! The trend lines at Pollster have converged and Martin now leads by a scant half percent!
Yep. He’s smiling over that too.
I’ve thought for about a week that Martin would pull it off. I think we’re going to either come within one seat of a Lieberman-proof 60-seater or get it.
Oh, I’ll be a happy woman! After what that bottom dwelling creep to Sen. Cleland! Oh, he so richly deserves to go down. It would be second only to seeing George Allen go down to defeat in the absolute glee I will feel. Oh, and that awful Bauchman person. She needs to go give minutes ago.
I am tired of their bullshit.
Extra points for proper Georgian use of “Mmmhmm,” by the way. 😉 I keep trying to teach my New Yorker boss how to do that correctly, but he doesn’t get it.
Thinking back to my days in Louisiana growing up under Jim Crow …
If Obama takes Georgia or SC I’ll need electroshock therapy to get my brain re-started.
Barney Smith returns! He’s the subject of a new Obama ad for Indiana.
Best line ever (from the convention) “It’s time we had a president that put Barney Smith before Smith Barney.”
Yay!! I saw that ad. VERY glad to see it.
It should be noted that in the Texas primary Obama did extremely well in the early voting but was still unable to win the popular vote. So we cannot get complacent.
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