Democrats Early Voting Edge Shows Promise, But Not Victory
Democrats have gained an edge with early voting in Iowa and Nevada, according to the most recent polls.
While the larger swing states of Florida and Ohio remain a toss up, Democrats have gained a cleared advantage in the smaller swing states of Iowa and Nevada. More than two million Americans have already taken advantage of early voting, with a large amount of those voters coming out of Iowa.
Iowa holds 6 key electoral votes and as early voting continues, the state is on pace to pass the number of voters who turned out in 2008. Of those early voters however, it appears that more Democrats have turned out than Republicans. According to a Bloomberg report, registered Democrats have cast 44.6 percent of the ballots so far, compared with 32 percent by Republicans and 23.3 percent by independents.
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The numbers reveal that Democrats appear to have at least a 20 percent advantage, according to second report offered by CNN. The imbalance could represent efforts by the Obama campaign to involve more of its party members into the election process. A dashboard site utilized by the campaign allows Obama fans to sign up for volunteer opportunities, share early voting news with friends on social networks like Facebook, and even offers numbers of individuals in swing states for self run phone banks.
Other less traditional approaches by the Obama campaign have included buying unexpected ad space, such as during video game ads. One such ad ran during Madden's NFL online game, in hopes of effectively targeting a younger audience.
Romney on the other hand, has taken a more traditional approach by also using Facebook, but gearing ads towards voters in those key states.
But despite having an early advantage, many are still expecting the race to be tighter than it was in 2008.
With some "hustling" and a push at the end, Romney could make a race of it, Michael McDonald, associate professor government and politics at George Mason University who specializes in elections said in a CNN report.
