Battleground: An early vote advantage

The Washington Post , covering yesterday’s Obama conference call on the state of the race, notes what appears to be the Democrats’ early-voting advantage. “A surge in early voting by Democrats marks a reversal of the pattern that helped Bush win in 2004 and makes McCain's task more difficult. So far, 200,000 more Democrats than Republicans have cast ballots in Florida, while 19 percent of Democratic early voters in North Carolina did not vote in 2004. ‘The die is being cast as we speak,’ Obama campaign manager David Plouffe asserted. ‘On Election Day, Senator McCain is not going to have to just carry the day but carry it convincingly.’” More: “In Florida, Plouffe said, Republicans finished with a 40,000-vote edge among early and absentee voters in 2004, while Democrats currently have a 200,000-vote lead. He said Obama is doing better with Hispanics, including Colombians, Puerto Ricans and young Cuban-Americans, than did Sen. John F. Kerry. ‘We're kind of out of the land of theory in a lot of ... (link)