As Americans headed to the polls today, many others have already cast their ballots in the 2022 Midterms.
For once that had Democrats worried.
Because early voting problems have Jen Psaki and her media pals hyperventilating about Miami-Dade and Clark County.
Democrats have long been better than Republicans at organizing early voting campaigns.
And that was even before they used the pandemic to loosen oversight over who was casting and counting ballots in 2020.
So record-level early voting returns so this year would normally have Democrats and their media mouthpieces feeling good today.
But the lax voting oversight brought on by universal mail-in ballots, unmanned ballot drop boxes, early voting, no-excuse absentee ballots and of course, no identification needed to vote may not be enough to create a “Red Mirage” this year.
And that has Democrats freaking out on Tuesday about early voting in key counties nationwide, despite what their media mouthpieces say.
Jen Psaki: “don’t freak out”
“Ok second don’t freak out early—and have coffee late this afternoon—in Nevada—Clark County is the biggie (Vegas) and because of volume it often takes time to count so vote reporting could skew R early. Voters also can send mail in ballot post marked today (received by 11/12),” former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki wrote in Tweet.
Ok second don’t freak out early—and have coffee late this afternoon—in Nevada—Clark County is the biggie (Vegas) and because of volume it often takes time to count so vote reporting could skew R early. Voters also can send mail in ballot post marked today (received by 11/12)
— Jen Psaki (@jrpsaki) November 8, 2022
In the Florida Democrat stronghold of Miami-Dade county – one of the few places where White House handlers let President Joe Biden campaign – the numbers are poised to humiliate Democrats.
“Republicans lead Democrats in total ballots cast by nearly 10,000 votes in Miami-Dade County.” Fox News’ Caroline Elliott tweeted out in an early afternoon update.
ELECTION UPDATE: Republicans lead Democrats in total ballots cast by nearly 10,000 votes in Miami-Dade County.
These figures include early voting, vote-by-mail, and Election Day ballots as of 2 PM.
R: 232,170
D: 222,046
NPA: 143,937 pic.twitter.com/pszEsRqp6S— Caroline Elliott (@CELLIOTTTV) November 8, 2022
That’s somewhat different from recent elections where Democrats jump out to a huge lead with early voting, and then America watches to see if same-day voting results allow for the GOP to catch up or not.
And this year, state-after-state is experiencing record early voting returns for a Midterm election.
That had Democrats believing their two-message 2022 strategy of pushing non-stop for abortion and calling Republicans “election deniers” and “clear and present threats to democracy” must be working.
However, if typical Democrat strongholds like Clark County, Nevada and Miami-Dade, Florida are any indication, Democrats are in for a big surprise.
They are each by far the largest counties by population of their respective states.
And each of them has seen massive numbers of early voting returns.
In the Sunshine State, ABC News reported, one week out from Election Day, that 128,979 Republicans had voted in Miami-Dade – compared to 127,658 Democrats.
The blue team usually counts on massive leads coming out of Miami-Dade to make up for more conservative counties across the state.
With Miami-Dade not delivering for Democrats, Republicans are actually leading in early voting in Florida overall.
“Florida is not looking so good for the Democrats,” said Michael McDonald, who oversees data analyzed by the University of Florida’s U.S. Elections Project. “There are fewer registered Democrats who have voted than registered Republicans. That’s really unusual for Florida. A lot of Democrats have mail ballots, and they may yet return them. But at this point in time, Republicans have a lead in the early vote, and unless something fundamentally changes in Florida, if we go into Election Day and Republicans are still leading in the early votes, I would say that is all but over for [Charlie] Crist and [Val] Demings’ possibilities of winning their races.”
Meanwhile, the Democrats are having similar problems in the Silver State.
Jon Rolston is the foremost name in analyzing Nevada politics, hosting his own political talk show on the NBC News affiliates in both Las Vegas and Reno for more than a decade.
And based on what Rolston has seen in early voting, he’s predicting tonight will be a long night for Nevada Democrats.
“Twelve days of early voting in the books, and I think it’s safe to say now after years of watching these numbers/trends: The Dems are in trouble in Nevada,” Rolston wrote in his political blog. “The reason is simple: Mail is way down in Clark County from 2020, and the numbers are just not big enough to boost the Clark firewall after the GOP wins in-person early voting every day. Large (relatively speaking) in-person turnouts on Wednesday in both urban counties, which helped the GOP hold its own amid a still-lagging mail turnout. Clark was a combined plus 1,000 ballots for the Dems, who lost a couple of hundred ballots in Washoe.”
These early returns in traditionally large, blue counties, raise serious worries for Democrats.
Political Animal News will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
