Notice: This is an opinion piece not fully based on statistical information.
Early voting results can predict the outcome of the election but I don't think it's going to work quite as well as usual. I am a republican, but I don't support Donald Trump. I know people who are waiting to vote because they want to see the whole picture before they vote. The want more information on all candidates to choose the one they like best (even though they may not like any of them). While this is purely anecdotal information since the people I know is far from an representative sample of American voters (most of my friends and family attended or graduated college). But I think this may be a reason why some republicans aren't voting early because they may think there is going to be another late breaking surprise.There are some republicans and republican-leaners appear to voting for independent candidates like Evan McMullin or Gary Johnson or even writing in names of people who aren't running (John McCain,Mike Pence and Paul Ryan are some of the names being floated around among republican politicians as who they voted for). I think a lot of republicans are waiting because they want to know if it's safe to go third party or not vote at all in states that are incredibly close. Gary Johnson may decide the election in Arizona because if his support appears to pull from traditionally republican voters who don't support Trump. However, as the closeness of the race in Arizona, Ohio, and Iowa (Trump is slightly leading the polls in Iowa but it is very close) gets echoed through the media in the next 7 days, I think that Trump may gain votes from people who view him as the lesser of two evils. So while republicans aren't voting early like usual, I think that as election day approaches republicans will go vote. The fact that Arizona, Iowa, Ohio, and Florida have incumbent republican senators up for reelection means that eventually republicans will turn out to the polls.
Disclosure: I am writing in Ana Navarro for president (this will not count as a vote because she is ineligible and will be like I left it blank). But I plan to vote a straight republican ticket besides for president.
It's really hard to tell at this point what is going on with turnout in North Carolina and Florida. The numbers are changing on a daily basis, and I can't find the original data. The republican turnout in Iowa and Arizona is still a little low. With all the things that have happened this cycle, I don't know if anything that normally works for predicting results will work this year.
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