Across Colorado, mailbags are bulging with cast ballots and county clerks have been tabulating how many people have already voted and who those people are.
Today, Craig Hughes, a Denver-based political consultant for Democratic candidates, logged onto Twitter to put some of this early return data into context.
Hughes and a counterpart, Colorado Republican pollster and consultant David Flaherty, agree: The numbers look remarkably good for Democrats in Colorado this presidential election season with still two weeks to go until Nov. 8.
Mini tweetstorm on early Colorado returns. Numbers are staggering. D's now +8.2% of 290,000 so this is not small sample size 1/5 #copolitics
— Craig Hughes (@CraigHughesinCO) October 25, 2016
15% of those who have voted so far in CO have NO vote history. That is a huge number for this early. 2/5 #copolitics
— Craig Hughes (@CraigHughesinCO) October 25, 2016
At this point in 2012 there was a 6% R advantage, so this is a 14% swing right now. And consistent across all demographics 3/5 #copolitics
— Craig Hughes (@CraigHughesinCO) October 25, 2016
There is no one reason i.e. Denver reporting quicker than El Paso or Douglas. The county numbers are in line historically 4/5 #copolitcs
— Craig Hughes (@CraigHughesinCO) October 25, 2016
Fully expect R surge but right now clear that R's are holding their ballots…and there is no GOP presidential field. 5/5 #copolitics
— Craig Hughes (@CraigHughesinCO) October 25, 2016
Also, full credit to @MagellanStrat for putting out the demographics. Very helpful to compare to previous elections. #copolitics
— Craig Hughes (@CraigHughesinCO) October 25, 2016
Flaherty, who runs the Republican-leaning public affairs firm Magellan Strategies, acknowledges what appears might be on the horizon.
“I think we are beginning to see a Democratic wave,” he told The Colorado Independent. “I think there are major problems afoot [for Republicans] with these numbers. Democrats have never been up his high this early.”
Dem wave election in the making, Colorado Dem lead in ballot returns over GOP grows to 23,710 #copolitics #2016 https://t.co/v4fmFrbIIQ
— David Flaherty (@MagellanStrat) October 25, 2016
Since 1992 Flaherty has been closely watching voter data in Colorado. He says Republicans, who lost the state in 2012, were much more organized than this year.
“This operation is just on fumes,” he says.
Never had Flaherty seen so much organized turnout on the Democratic side. Republicans, he says, are likely holding onto their ballots longer because of the effect of Donald Trump at the top of the ticket. Does he think they can catch up?
“No,” he says flatly.
This is first presidential election in which voters in Colorado can cast their ballots entirely by mail.
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Here’s the Sec of State’s numbers as of yesterday.
Dems 117,766 + 82%
Reps 94,499 + 4%
UNA 70,410 + 52%
LIB 2,531 + 85%
OTHER 1,433 +190%
TOTAL 286,639 + 40%
Those are staggering stats that illustrate a possible sea change having taken place in Colorado since the last midterms.
Wow. It’s a little shocking for Dave Flaherty to throw these numbers out with such a frank assessment this early.
15% with NO VOTING HISTORY….that’s an early sign of a big motivational deficit on The Right.