Like recent arguments over so-called skewed public opinion polls, Democrats and Republicans in Iowa continue to debate which party’s early and absentee voting efforts are bearing more fruit in a key Senate race.
That Republicans are in a position to fight about this at all is a victory of sorts. They had never competed with Iowa Democrats on this front in any previous campaign. Even Republicans have acknowledged the prowess of Hawkeye State Democrats when it comes to banking votes ahead of Election Day. In a memo publicized Tuesday, Democratic Senate nominee Rep. Bruce Braley claimed that the early-voting numbers pointed to him beating GOP state Sen. Joni Ernst.
“Braley padding his early vote lead by even wider margins. Joni Ernst’s campaign sees the same numbers we do,” Braley campaign manager Sarah Benzing wrote in the memo. “That’s why they’ve taken to attempting to spin the early vote numbers in a more positive light for them.”
Republicans scoffed, almost literally, at Benzing’s assertion.
As the contest for Iowa’s open Senate seat entered its final week, with Ernst maintaining a lead over Braley in most public polls, Republicans expressed confidence that the Democratic advantage with early voters was insufficient, on its own, to overcome the GOP’s historical dominance with Election Day voters. Republican operatives provided a series of data points to the Washington Examiner to support their claims.
However, they emphasized two statistics in particular: That the percentage of GOP early voters who did not vote in 2010 is competitive with the Democrats, who are counting on expanding the electorate to counter the usual Republican turnout advantage in midterm elections; and that although there are more outstanding Democratic absentee ballots to collect, many of them have been in voters’ hands for a month or more, suggesting there’s no guarantee voters plan to return them.
Here are the GOP’s data points:
• Democrats have just under 25,000 ballots that are over a month old in the field which have not been returned, compared to only 7,000 for Republicans. GOP leading early voting by 1200 votes
“At this point in 2010, [Democrats] led in returned ballots by over 17,000; today, it is barely over 3,000,” Iowa GOP spokesman Michael Brickman said in a statement. “Their admission in today’s Washington Post that they are cannibalizing Election Day voters to try and pad their numbers only demonstrates the panic going on inside Congressman Braley and Iowa Democrats’ strategy sessions.”
