An elderly American casts a ballot on Nov.1, 2016, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin as a caregiver sits nearby during an early voting period one week before the presidential election. | Getty Poll: Democrats and the elderly loom large in early voting

Democrats and the elderly make up a larger proportion of this election cycle’s early voters than they do of the pool of overall likely voters, a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows.

The poll, which exclusively surveyed voters who had already cast a ballot for president, found that 45 percent identified themselves as Democrats, while 32 percent said they were Republicans and 23 percent identified as independents. The share of Democrats in the early-voting pool is 6 percentage points higher than it was in the pool of likely voters who responded to a POLITICO/Morning Consult horserace poll released Sunday.


Early voting has been a point of emphasis for the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, which has looked to build an advantage over Donald Trump before the polls even open on Election Day. The former secretary of state’s campaign manager Robby Mook said Monday on “CBS This Morning” that Clinton’s camp has been pleased by an uptick in voter turnout in key swing states like North Carolina and Florida, suggesting that her campaign’s overall efforts at voter registration and turnout “have established a lead in some states that Donald Trump can't overcome.”

Just as with Democrats, voters older than 65 make up a relatively larger portion of the early-voting electorate: 28 percent of the pool of overall early voters are elderly, versus 22 percent of likely voters overall.

Respondents to the poll of early voters favored Clinton on an array of issues when asked which of the two candidates would do best facing them. The former secretary of state polled ahead of the Manhattan billionaire on Medicare (on which she holds a 15-point advantage), Social Security (+14), taxes (+9), the national debt (+5), national security (+9), terrorism (+5), education (+22), health care (+13), the environment (+25), jobs (+7) and the economy (+6). Respondents did not favor Trump on any of the polled issues.

Regardless of who wins, early-voting respondents said they are nervous. Thirty-one percent said they would be scared if Clinton were to win the White House on Tuesday, compared with 46 percent who said the same of Trump. Twenty-seven percent said they would be optimistic, but not excited, by a Clinton victory while just 19 percent said the same of Trump.

A Clinton victory would excite 23 percent of those polled, while 21 percent said they would be excited by a Trump victory. Eleven percent responded that a win by the real estate mogul would make them concerned, but not scared, while 16 percent said the same of the former secretary of state.

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted online from Oct. 18 to Nov. 6, reaching 2,263 voters nationwide who said they had already cast a ballot either in person or by mail. The margin of error for the full national sample of 10,748 registered voters is plus-or-minus 2 percentage points. Interviews for the full study were conducted online and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of registered voters based on age, race/ethnicity, gender, educational attainment and region.

Morning Consult is a nonpartisan media and technology company that provides data-driven research and insights on politics, policy and business strategy.

More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents — Toplines: http://politi.co/2fyiN1G Crosstabs: http://politi.co/2fwv8Fj