Georgia's early voting results don't bode well for GOP nominee Donald Trump, says election expert Michael McDonald.
Early voting ended in the state Friday with a record 4 million ballots cast before Election Day. Trump lost the state by less than 1% in 2020 and McDonald suggests that Georgia’s early vote electorate has a similar demographic profile to then, "if perhaps slightly fewer women and slightly more non-Hispanic Whites."
"In the scenario where there is 2024 cannibalism of Republican voters from Election Day to in-person early, this does not bode well for Donald Trump," he writes.
"But we do not know yet to what degree Republicans voting early elsewhere is a sign of enthusiasm among Republicans which will carry through to Election Day or if it is a matter of shifting of when people are voting."
McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida, has been studying how votes are counted for years.
The approach he uses is "difference-in-difference,” which compares statistics in the current election to a past comparable election.
Four million Georgians also cast their vote early in 2020, or 80% of the 5 million votes cast.
"If the early vote is a similar 80% that again yields 5 million voted," McDonald writes.
"Since Georgia’s population has grown over the past four years, this means the turnout rate will still be high, but slightly below 2020’s 67.1%, which was a record in modern presidential elections. From the turnout perspective this seems right to me, since it will be hard to best the 2020 election, but voters are still engaged."
His conclusion: "consistent with the polls that show a tight race within polls’ margin-of-error."