Early Voting: Both Obama And Romney Claiming An Advantage So Far

Early voting is going on in many swing states crucial to the 2012 presidential election, and already both sides are claiming an advantage.

As Michael P. McDonald of The Huffington Post noted, Democrats and Republicans have put the spin machine into overdrive trying to claim they are winning in early voting. As McDonald noted, in most cases the truth lies somewhere between these claims.

McDonald focused on early voting in Iowa, Ohio, and North Carolina, all three swing states up for grabs. Of these, Iowa offered the clearest picture, with Democrats running slightly behind the pace set in 2008 that allowed Barack Obama to easily win the state and turn it blue again.

McDonald wrote:

“The Iowa early vote looks good for Obama. However, in 2008 Democrats had a party registration lead of 47 percent to 29 percent (as of Nov. 1, 2008). If the Romney campaign can convert all the absentee ballot requests, they will narrow the 2008 Democratic advantage ever so slightly, when the actual election results show that Obama won the Iowa early vote 60 percent to 38 percent and won the state 54 percent to 45 percent.”

In Florida, both sides have been spinning the slight advantages they’ve been able to gain, he noted, ultimately concluding that more time was needed before the picture became clear.

Ohio too was contentious, but McDonald concluded that Republicans were stepping up their early voting efforts from 2008. Whether it would make a big enough difference to allow them to win the critical state was still unknown.

Early voting in North Carolina showed positive signs for Obama, Thompson wrote:

“North Carolina began in-person early voting on Thursday, and oh what a difference a day makes. In one day, over 150,872 people voted in-person, which is the Democrats preferred method of early voting in North Carolina. The party registration numbers were upended. As of Wednesday, registered Republicans outnumbered Democrats 52 percent to 27 percent and as of Thursday, Democrats outnumber Republicans 47 percent to 35 percent. But before we call North Carolina for Obama, registered Democrats had healthy early vote leads in 2008 and 2004.”

Obama scored a major victor in the fight for early voting this week, The Huffington Post reported. In Ohio, a state necessary for both candidates in order to win the election, a judge decided that early voting can continue in the weekend leading up to the election. giving Democrats a boost.