Early voting results are coming in, and although both political parties claim to have the upper hand, a closer look reveals that the race is simply too close to call.
The results from early voting and absentee ballots are giving the candidates new ways to spin their victory, but neither side seems to really be out doing the other.
The Republican Party is finding satisfaction in the fact that the Democratic Party isn’t performing as well as they did during the last election when President Obama ran against John McCain.
“They [Democrats] are under-performing what their 2008 numbers were, and we are over-performing,” said Rich Beeson, a Mitt Romney campaign director.
Romney pollster Neil Newhouse believed that the Republican advantage simply rested with intensity.
“There’s no question we have an intensity advantage… Intensity drives turnout,” Newhouse explained.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, claims that what really matters isn’t how they are performing compared to last year but how they are performing compared to the Republicans this year.
“It’s not about whether or not they’re doing better than John McCain did. It’s about whether or not they’re doing better than us,” said Obama’s national field director, Jeremy Bird.
The Democrats currently hold a 2-percentage-point lead in Florida and according to Obama’s Florida campaign spokesperson Eric Jotkoff the campaign has created the “largest ground game in Florida history.”
Once again, however, non-biased political scientists with no party affiliation are saying that once all the factors are added up nobody is in the lead.
“Right now when I look at the numbers, it just looks to me like a close election,” George Mason University political scientist Michael McDonald said. “If you just look at the overall numbers… it’s going to be decided Election Day.”
Although none of the actual ballots have been counted yet, the early voting results have been based on the party affiliation of voters which in itself could provide some rather inaccurate information.
Right now four out of the five battleground states seem to be favoring president Obama, however, Mitt Romney is expected a voting surge on Election Day that can put an end to Obama’s small lead.
In Florida 43 percent of the voters were affiliated with the Democratic Party while 40 percent were Republican, not a large enough gap to promise either candidate victory just yet.
Other battleground states, however, did give the President a bit more of an advantage but not the run away victory that Democrats would have hoped for.
So far 43 percent of early voters in Iowa have come out in support of the President, while only 32 percent came out for Mitt Romney.
In Nevada, the Democratic turn out was 44 percent while the Republican turnout reached only 37 percent.
All eyes have been on Ohio, however, which has the President in the lead so far with 29 percent Democratic turnout and 23 percent Republican turnout, but apparently this is one lead that Obama’s campaign shouldn’t get too comfortable with just yet.
While 72 percent of absentee votes have already been returned and give the President a slight advantage, the state is expecting things to turn around once they take into consideration the people who came out to vote in person.
The secretary of state’s office will be releasing results from larger counties every 15 minutes as the votes start coming in and from smaller counties every hour.
With all the people still waiting to cast their vote on election day, and the many voters who may not be voting along with their party this election, the race is simply too unpredictable to claim a winner at this point.
