Early Voting Has Started In Other States- Will McCain Have To Double Down on PA?

A Captain Renault post: Lots of reports today with looks at the early voting patterns in the states that allow early voting. The reports do not look good for McCain. An AP story was filed just a few hours ago with these facts and figures:

_Florida: About 2.6 million people have already voted in a state where absentee ballots overwhelmingly favored President Bush in the razor-thin 2000 election. Among those voting so far this year, 45 percent are registered Democrats and 39 percent Republicans.

_North Carolina: About 1.6 million people have already voted — 54 percent are registered Democrats and 29 percent are Republicans. About 100,000 newly registered voters have signed up and voted at North Carolina's one-stop voting centers, McDonald said. Among them, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by about 2-1, he said.

_Iowa: About 340,000 people have already voted — 49 percent are registered Democrats and 29 percent are Republicans


_Colorado: About 815,000 people have voted — 39 percent are registered Democrats and 37 percent are Republicans.


_Nevada: About 342,000 people have already voted in Clark and Washoe Counties, which contain nearly 90 percent of the state's population. Among those voters, 53 percent are registered Democrats and 30 percent are Republicans.


_New Mexico: About 111,000 people have voted in Bernalillo County, the state's largest. Among them, 55 percent are registered Democrats and 33 percent are Republicans.


_Georgia: Black voters make up about 35 percent of those who have already voted — a big increase from the 2004 election, when 25 percent of the state's electorate was black. Blacks voted for Obama by ratio of 9-1 in Georgia's Democratic primary this year.


And here is a story from Ohio that also has good news for Democrats in the early voting in that state.

Many analysts have accurately pointed out, in my opinion, that one of the reasons McCain is so focused on PA despite being behind in every poll published here in the last month is precisely because we don't have early voting. A state with no early voting gives McCain at least a chance (however slim) for the extra days he needs to hope for a game changing event. So the voters in PA become McCain's last best hope.

McCain is known to like a little gambling and it seems to me as he and his team look at the early voting reports around the country he has no choice but to double down on his bet in PA.