'Best News For Democrats': Surge In Early Voting By Women
On Election Night 2024, decision desks will be paying especially close attention to the vote count in Pennsylvania — a crucial swing state that has 19 electoral votes and will help decide the outcome of the presidential race.
National and battleground state polls have been showing a very close race in the Keystone State, where Republican Donald Trump and Democratic Kamala Harris are tied in CBS News and CNN polls released in late October. A Quinnipiac University poll released on October 30 showed Trump with a two percent lead in Pennsylvania. A Marist poll released on November 1 showed Harris two points head there.
Early voting is underway in Pennsylvania. And according to Politico reporters Megan Messerly and Jessica Piper, Democrats view a heavy turnout among female voters as a very good sign for Harris.
"Across battlegrounds, there is a 10-point gender gap in early voting so far," Messerly and Piper explain in an article published on October 29. "Women account for roughly 55 percent of the early vote, while men are around 45 percent, according to a Politico analysis of early vote data in several key states. The implications for next week's election results are unclear; among registered Republicans, women are voting early more than men, too. But the high female turnout is encouraging to Democratic strategists, who expected that a surge in Republican turnout would result in more gender parity among early voters."
Messerly and Piper add, "It's impossible to know who these women are voting for, including whether Democrats are winning over unaffiliated or moderate Republican women disillusioned with former President Donald Trump. But the gender gap has been one of the defining features of the 2024 campaign, and Harris allies see the lack of a surge of male voters as an encouraging sign."
Tangle News' Issac Saul tweeted that Politico's "analysis of early voting data in Pennsylvania found that women registered as Democrats made up nearly a third of early votes this year from people who did not vote in the state in 2020." And this, Saul added, is the "best news for Dems in weeks."
Democratic strategist Tom Bonier told Politico, "In some states, women are actually exceeding their vote share from 2020, which is, at this point, shocking to me. I never would have bet on that.”
Messerly and Piper report, "According to TargetSmart’s analysis, Black and Latino women under the age of 30 are not only showing up at higher rates than their male peers — but by even a larger margin than they did in 2020."
The Politico reporters add, "That finding is echoed by internal data shared with Politico by the progressive, women-focused organization Supermajority, which is targeting many of these women: More than a third of the 3.6 million low-propensity women the organization is focused on turning out have already voted, which Democrats see as a good sign given that infrequent voters tend to vote later or on Election Day."
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
