Early Voting Numbers Salve the Worries of New York Democrats — for the Moment

For weeks New York Republicans have been talking about a tightening election — and for good reason — but the partisan skew in the state’s early voting data points in a different direction.Last week a co/efficient poll made a splash showing Representative Lee Zeldin, a Republican, leading Governor Hochul, a Democrat, narrowly — 45.6 percent to 45.3 percent— in New York’s gubernatorial race.While this poll was an outlier, the race in New York is proving to be closer than is typical for the Empire State. RealClearPolitics gives Ms. Hochul a 6.1 point lead in its average of polling, and it ranks the race a toss-up, though still projecting Ms. Hochul will win.In 2018, for comparison, Governor Cuomo sailed to victory with nearly 60 percent of the vote compared to 36 percent for the Republican nominee, Marc Molinaro.A new analysis of early voting from Target Smart, a Democratic political data and data services firm, suggests that New York Democrats might be having a particularly good year, at least so far.According to an analysis released by the firm’s chief executive, Thomas Bonier, Democrats are showing up at over double the rate of Republicans in early voting. As of October 26, some 62 percent of ballots returned were from registered Democrats and only 23 percent were from registered Republicans.In 2020, Democrats accounted for about 55 percent of the early vote, compared to Republicans’ 22 percent, according to Target Smart. In 2018, some 44 percent of the early vote came from Democrats and 35 percent came from Republicans.According to Mr. Bonier, there’s “no sign” in the early voting data that the GOP is “inspiring enthusiasm in New York.” He points to higher turnout among African Americans and Latinos as driving the trend.“New York stands as one of the few states where the early vote is substantially more Democratic than it was at this point in ’18 or ’20,” Mr. Bonier tweeted, cautioning that Democrats should not rule out the impact of a “GOP election day surge.”Nationally, Republicans are also behind in early voting with Democrats leading 46.4 percent to 32.5 percent, with independents accounting for 21.1 percent, according to the United States Elections Project.The Project also sees signs of Democratic enthusiasm in another state that’s had a major debate in the past week. In Pennsylvania, Democrats outnumber Republicans in early voting by three to one.According to the project, Democrats account for 72 percent of the early vote there while Republicans only account for 20 percent of the early vote there.

Early Voting Numbers Salve the Worries of New York Democrats — for the Moment

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