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What early voting can (and can't) tell us about the election

18 October 2020
 Dan Ackermann
Adapted from TargetSmart. (Battleground states include Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.) Chart: Naema Ahmed/Axios

Democratic strategists think the early numbers show a 2020 electorate that's bigger, younger and more diverse than in 2016 — and not just shifting forward votes that would have otherwise arrived on Election Day.

The big picture: Early voting data signals strong Democratic enthusiasm in key battleground states. But strategists in both parties say Republicans could still overtake that advantage with a surge of in-person turnout on Election Day.

Details: So far, first-time and infrequent Democratic voters are outpacing registered Republicans with larger margins than in 2016, according to data from TargetSmart, a Democratic firm.

  • “In North Carolina, nearly 1 in 5 ballots cast so far come from those who didn’t vote in 2016," said Greg Speed, president of America Votes.
  • 24.9 million ballots have already been cast. In key states like Florida, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Iowa, more than a quarter of the total number of ballots that were cast in 2016 have already been received.
  • More than six times as many Democrats have cast ballots than at the same point in 2016 — and Republican early voting has nearly quadrupled.

Pennsylvania and Florida are key to watch.

  • 59% of first-time voters who already cast ballots in Pennsylvania are registered Democrats, compared to the just 15% who are registered Republicans. Democratic first-time voters were just barely outvoting Republicans (40% to 38%) at this point in 2016.
  • In Florida, registered Democrats' lead over registered Republicans among first-time voters has grown by nearly 10 percentage points compared to 2016.

What to watch: 2020 is an election like none other, and comparisons to 2016 should be taken with a grain of salt.

  • "I can't help but look at this data with the lens of Trump telling Republicans so consistently that vote-by-mail is a scam," Josh Mendelsohn, CEO of Michael Bloomberg's data firm Hawkfish, told Axios. "That distrust — it bears out in this data."
  • "There's less of an imperative for Republicans to vote early," said Mike Meyers, a Republican and president TargetPoint Consulting.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.