1/ I know the national political press couldn’t care less about what’s happening on the ground in solid blue states like WA, but I’ve been obsessively analyzing Seattle elections since 2004, and I can tell you that something special is unfolding here. https://twitter.com/kcelections/status/1318030801460604933

2/ Typically, ballots trickle in over the first week, slowly ramp up, and then flood in at the end. 65% to 80% of ballots come in the final few days of the election. Seattle voters simply don’t vote early. We just don’t. Only this year we are.

Why?

3/ In other parts of the country COVID has severely impacted voting patterns. But that offers no explanation here. WA has been all vote-by-mail since 2006. COVID changes nothing. Likewise, early voting is also off the charts in vote-by-mail pioneer OR.

4/ This makes WA & OR the control group in an difference in differenceexperiment. Is the surge in early voting nationwide entirely due to COVID and/or anxiety over voter suppression and USPS slowdowns? The surge here, where none of that comes into play, suggests no.

5/ My guess is that a lot of people are voting early because they just can’t wait to vote. And if that level of enthusiasm translates into record voter turnout, the likely voter models are all shot to hell.
/end