Florida

Republicans did their best to restrict voting opportunities in this state. While other battlegrounds have been voting for weeks, Florida had its first two early voting days over the weekend:



The Department of State said as of Monday morning, nearly 1.4 million people had cast absentee ballots and more than 500,000 people cast ballots in person during the early voting period that began Saturday. The vote is nearly evenly split by party, with 784,444 ballots cast by Democrats and 774,304 ballots cast by Republicans. More than 307,000 ballots have been cast by voters who don't belong to either major party. The total represents nearly 16 percent of Florida's 11.9 million voters.

In 2008, the Democratic early vote ended up 45.6 percent Democratic, 37.3 percent Republican. Sounds dire! Except that Republicans have always led the absentee ballots, and they were winning those 44-39 before in-person voting began.

Democrats focus on the in-person stuff, and have erased that five-point GOP advantage in just two days of in-person early voting:



Party Early Vote %

DEM 251,110 49%

REP 177,958 35%

IND 84,121 16%

TOTAL 513,189

In 2008, about 47 percent of the early vote was Democratic, compared to 29 percent Republican. So far this year, it's 44.6 percent Democratic, 32.1 percent Republican.

In 2008, 31.6 percent of the vote was cast early, or 481,179 votes. We're already close to matching that this year, with 470,801 ballots cast. So doing some quick math, that's a nearly 59,000-vote edge for Democrats. It's not as large as 2008, but that's not surprising. The Romney campaign is more organized than whatever broke thing John McCain had, and they've been pushing early voting as well.

But here's a stat that speaks to intensity: Dems requested 43.7 percent of all early ballots, and have cast 44.6 percent of the total. Republicans requested 30.8 percent of all early ballots, and have returned 32.1 percent of the total. So Republicans are slightly outperforming Democrats on this measure.

Want more data? FightingRegistrar has some for you.

Nevada

Ralston:



So five days of early voting left and the state of play: The Democrats have a lead, but not one that guarantees victory for President Obama. Republicans, though, have to be worried about Washoe County, where the Democrats have been building a small lead -- it's about 1,600 votes or so now. Republicans will win Election Day there and elsewhere. But if the Democrats keep it close in Washoe, it's almost impossible to see a path to a Romney victory. The latest numbers (no mail counted Sunday) in Clark: Democrats -- 146,937, or 49 percent

Republicans -- 99,515, or 33 percent

Others -- 54,540, or 18 percent

You want more Nevada numbers? FightingRegistrar has those as well.

North Carolina

I'll outsource this to MattTX. Seriously, read his stuff every morning. But a quick overview:

Dems have opened up an estimated 133,905-vote advantage on Romney. That's smaller than the 198,059-vote edge Obama had at this point in 2008. Republicans are certainly voting earlier than last time, when McCain had no North Carolina ground game to speak of. But, more Democrats have voted than at this point four years ago. So there's no intensity gap, no falloff in Democratic support. Check this out.



30% of African Americans in North Carolina age 18+ have already voted. That's 440,941 voters - 30% of North Carolina's entire 1,480,769 person African American voting age population counted by the Census Bureau in 2010. That's not 30% of African American registered voters. That's 30% of all African American adults. Because, for one more week in North Carolina, you can register to vote and actually cast your ballot at the same time, all in one stop. So even if a would-be voter is not registered to vote right now, they can still register and vote.

Obama entered Election Day with a 267,000-vote advantage in early votes, and saw that whittled down 230,000 votes on that final day. Question is, will Romney have that much juice on Election Day this year, or will his voters simply have shifted forward by a week or two?

Either way, this one ain't over folks, and even if we lose, this strong early vote means Republicans have to keep focusing here when they'd rather try and expand the map.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania doesn't have no-excuse early voting because the state's GOP leadership did everything in its power to make it as hard as possible to vote. So what Reince is talking about is absentee ballots, mostly cast by elderly GOP-leaning voters. In 2008, according to the GOP's data (which may or may not be legit), Republicans won the absentee vote by two points en route to a 10-point statewide drubbing. Only about five percent of the state's total vote is cast early.

What's more, while the GOP claims about 300,000 people voted early in 2008, that number is just 115,000 this year. So we're not even talking final absentee numbers.