Hillary Clinton’s campaign on Friday said it estimated that a robust performance in early voting in Florida has netted the Democratic nominee a lead of about 170,000 votes.
Campaign manager Robby Mook said the emerging Clinton coalition in Florida and other battleground states is being fueled by unusually high early and absentee voting by Hispanics and Asians, plus strong support from white suburban women and white millennials.
The Clinton campaign is particularly optimistic because of the early votes cast by Hispanics it considers low propensity voters — meaning they are sporadic or even first-time voters and less likely to participate in the election.
Accordingly, the campaign expressed confidence that it wasn’t cannibalizing its voting base and had room to grow among those individuals who would vote on Election Day, now just four days away.
“Our campaign has organized to leverage this early voting period and build a firewall … and build up a lead that Donald Trump is incapable of overcoming,” Mook told reporters during a conference call.
Mook and Marlon Marshall, a top Clinton campaign official in charge of grassroots organizing, said they were encouraged by the early and absentee voting returns in Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and Colorado.
Both dismissed suggestions that African-Americans were not turning out in sufficient numbers for Clinton to win given how close the margins are between her and the Republican nominee in some of these states. That could especially be the case in North Carolina.
But Mook and Marshall said the African-American vote began ticking up on Thursday, after more polling places opened in the state. Democrats have said since the beginning of the early voting period that fewer polling places compared to the same period four years ago was the cause of lower black turnout.
“When more sites open up in the state you see more participation,” Marshall said.
The Clinton campaign concedes that North Carolina is a close race. But it likes what it sees in Democratic strongholds in the state. Early voting is up in Durham County by 23 percent over 2012; Wake County is up by 21 percent over 2012; and Orange County is up by 29 percent.
The Republicans also are touting their performance in the early voting period.
According to a press release issued by the Republican National Committee, which is handling ground game operations for the Trump campaign, GOP early vote returns increased in North Carolina by 130,000, compared to the same period in 2012.
Republicans also are outperforming their 2012 numbers in Florida, Iowa and Nevada. Here’s a roundup of key states, based on reports from journalists and political operatives on the ground.
Florida. On Friday, Democrats surpassed Republicans in early, in-person voting and vote-by-mail returns for the first time this cycle. They were up by about 3,000, although those numbers were subject to change and the race remains “crazy tight,” according to Steve Schale, a Democratic operative who ran President Obama’s Florida operation in 2008 and 2012.
Nearly 60 percent of the total projected electorate has voted, and Democrats like what they’re seeing in swing counties like Hillsborough (Tampa) and the metro Orlando in central Florida. Democrats also continue to see what they view as a surge of non-Cuban Hispanics. That’s important because Cubans lean Republican. Others, particularly Florida’s growing Puerto Rican populaton, vote Democrat.
Meanwhile, Republicans are slightly ahead in Pinellas County (St. Petersburg and Clearwater.) And African American turnout, which is improving, still lags behind where Democrats would like it to be. Republicans are particularly encouraged because their early and absentee performance is so much better than it was four years ago.
Iowa. The Republicans increased focus on early voting has really cut into the Democrats’ historic advantage on this front in the Hawkeye State. Democrats lead Republicans in early returns by about 40,000. But that’s well off where things stood at this period four years ago, and hardly enough to sustain a lead given the GOP’s expected strong showing on Election Day. Trump has led in this state, according to most public polls.
Nevada. As of Friday morning, the Democrats had built a “firewall” of 61,000 votes in Clark County (Las Vegas), the state’s population center, according to Jon Ralston, a political analyst based in Nevada. The Republicans hold a modest lead in Washoe County (Reno.)
The Democrats’ peformance isn’t quite as good as it was in 2012, when Obama defeated Republican nominee Mitt Romney by 7 percentage points. But Ralston said the Democrats are very close to doing so well in early and absentee voting that it would be very hard for Trump to make up the difference on Election Day.
However, Trump isn’t conceding the state. He has scheduled a last minute campaign rally in Reno over the weekend.
North Carolina. Democrats and Republicans monitoring the numbers say the race for early and absentee votes is close, and that both parties have reasons to feel encouraged and concerned. Republicans have been crowing that African American turnout is down compared to 2012, which it is. Democrats counter that it’s on the upswing since Thursday, when more polling places in African American-dominated neighborhoods were opened (four years ago the extra polling sites were open throughout the entire early voting period.)
