The Political Hat

     In Clark County (the home of Las Vegas and 70% of the state’s population), the Democrats have about 86 to 88% about of the raw vote lead they had in 2008.  With turnout this year 30% above what it was in 2008, the Democrats voter advantage in 2012 is about ²/₃ of what is was in 2008.  An increase in the early vote by 30% would mean that 60% of all active registered voters will have voted before election day by early voting.  Absentee ballots are coming in at about ¹/₆ that of early votes, meaning that 70% of all active registered voters will have voted by election day.  This would mean that 88% or so of all ballots cat will be before election day, assuming an 80% turnout.

     All of the above assumes that 2012 trends like in 2008 (with Democrat vote advantage shrunk to 66%, and 130% of the voters).  For Clark County, this would mean that early voting, exclusive of absentee ballots, would be 75% of the total ballots cast by election day, assuming an 80% turnout.  This also assumes that the Democratic advantage is The polling for the independents has varied from R+18 to D+5 (or more). My back-of-the-envelope calculations have been assuming that each party keeps similar % of their voters and independents are split.

     Washoe (home of Reno and 20% of the state’s population), the Democrats have about a raw voter lead of a bit over a thousand.  Washoe will likely be a wash (pun intended), with the rural counties (with a generous 25K raw vote lead for Republicans) cutting the Clark lead estimate of about 85K Dem raw voter lead at the end of election day to about 60K, this would mean that Obama would win by around 6%, based on ~80% turnout . Probably 40% of the total vote has been cast so far.

     Since Heller has been running 4-6% ahead of Romney in the polls, the Senate race looks like a toss up right now. Continue reading →

     After the first week of early voting, the Democrats have a statewide raw vote lead of ~28 thousand with a third of the vote in. The numbers in Washoe are about even, with the Democrats having a 1040 vote lead), Clark County had a Dem lead of 38 thousand, while the rural counties had a GOP lead of 10K.  The total number of votes already cast are 25% of all active registered voters.  With an 80% total turnout, this comes to 30% of the vote.

     Unlike in 2008, Washoe County (home of Reno and 20% of state’s voters), never had a day where the GOP had more early voters than Democrats. For three of the past seven days, they did just that, with the last five days showing effectively a dead between Republican and Democrat votes.

     Also, Clark County (home to Las Vegas and 70% of state’s voters) has 211,327 early voters the first week, while in 2008 there was only 159,966. The Democrats lead is 37936, while in 2008 the lead was 44,770. While this is an improvement, early voting in ’08 was only 60% of the total votes cast, while it will probably be around 70% this year. That means it is possible for the Democrats to be in a better position with a smaller lead then in 2008, simply because there are even fewer voters left to vote. In ’08, the Democrats actually did better than the GOP on election day voters, though winning by only 3% or so.

     The Democrats lead after the first week in Clark County was about 18% (which is 3% above their voter registration of 15%).  This is down by 10% of the total early vote so far from 2008, when the Democrats advantage was about 28%.

     The Democrats have ballot lead in Clark County is 82% of what it was in 2010.  When the fact that turnout is ⁴/₃ of what is was in 2008, the Democrats vote lead shrinks to 18% from 28%, with the reduction being 64% of what it was in 2008. This would bring the Democrats lead down to 68 thousand votes. If early voting is estimated to be 70% of the early vote, and assuming that the Democrats absentee and election day lead of over 4% is reduced by a similar 54% to just under 3%, then Democrats will only increase lead to 79 thousand votes.  With Washoe coming in even, and the rural counties given an estimated generous 25K total lead to Romney come election day, Obama will win by about 54 thousand votes, or between 5―6%. This assumes that the 2008 trends for Clark County are mirrored (as modified previously) by what we see in 2012 (which is qualitatively not a bad fit).  For comparison, here are two back-of-the-envelope calculations from both the left and the right. Continue reading →