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A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll gave McCain a 49-45 lead over Democrat Barack Obama among Floridians who have already voted.
And Republicans continued to show a traditional strength, leading 50 percent to the Democrats' 30 percent in the 1.2 million absentee ballots already returned.
Conducted Oct. 25-27, the Los Angeles Times poll gave Obama a 50-47 lead overall in Florida. Only a tiny fraction of the Florida respondents reported voting early, leaving McCain's lead subject to a wide margin of error. A Quinnipiac University poll, released Wednesday, showed early voters favoring Obama 58-34, another small sample with a potentially wide margin of error.
Florida: About 2.6 million people have already voted in a state where absentee ballots overwhelmingly favored George W. Bush in the razor-thin 2000 election. Among those voting so far this year, 45 percent are registered Democrats and 39 percent Republicans.
FOXNews.com - Democrats dominate early voting in key states - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum (http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Oct30/0,4670,EarlyVoting,00.html - broken link)
I voted yesterday here in Nevada (North Las Vegas to be exact) around 10am and I noticed that a lot of folks voting were Democrats. What I also noticed was most of them were not part of the working class (retirees, moms, etc.). Tonight while taking my kids out to dinner (Both got great grades this quarter, they deserved a treat) there was a line of about 100 folks waiting to vote. Most of them were of the working class (I know this because a lot of them were still dirty, still wearing their work clothes, etc.)
I think these early ballot polls are showing is that more democratice voters have the time right now to go out and vote while the more republican voters have to wait until the 4th where a lot of work places let them head home early to vote, or give them a couple of hours at lunch time to vote, etc. I know that is what they did for my dad year after year when he worked at the engine plant.
I still think this race is a heck of a lot closer than the polls are showing for several reasons such as:
1. A lot are based on registered voters and with the increase of democratic registrations this year it will give the impression of Obama having a majority. Traditionally most of these folks don't bother to vote despite registering, after all it's one thing to answer a couple of questions at the mall and have them mail it in, and another to actually head down to the polling station on your own to vote.
2. Media bias. Face it, most media sources today have liberal leanings. And we all know how easy it is to make a poll give you the results you want them to give you. They always say things like poll sample 900 people, what they don't say is how many people were left out of the sample, where they took the sample from, etc. If I call 1000 people in say... Berkley California, Obama is going to look pretty good, if I call 1000 people that I know is part of the NRA, then McCain is going to look pretty good.
3. Racism. I know, this isn't popular to say, but it is there. How many Americans when they were asked straight out who they are going to vote for face to face with a poller hesitated to say McCain or answered Obama when they really didn't mean it because they were afraid of the poller thinking they were racist. I know A LOT of people who are terrified of being labled, to the point were they would lie to prevent any chance of it happening. I think a lot of polls have this, especially in battleground states.
Only time will tell one way or the other, and hopefully we will have an answer on Nov 5th (no matter who you backed in 2000, we don't need another Florida this time around), and despite most dire predictions, I think we will survive the next four years, maybe not prosper, but survive. My one and only prediction about this election is: No matter who wins, they will not serve a second term. The economy is to messed up to fix in 4 years, and someone always ends up taking the fall for bad news.
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