Early Voting Breakdown: Obama Up In Nevada, Romney Up In Colorado

Millions of people have turned out early to cast their votes for the 2012 Presidential Election. The exact results from early voting won’t be known until the election but there are some interesting numbers currently available.

According to the National Journal, states don’t report early voting tallies for President Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney. They do, however, report the total number of people who have voted and what party they are registered for. This can give a good indication of what candidate will win in a certain state.

CNN reports that more than a half million people have turned out for early voting in Nevada. Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller said that the state has recorded votes from people in person, by mail, and by absentee ballot.

So far, 432,748 votes have been cast. More than 45% of those voters were registered Democrat while 37% were registered Republican. Another 17.8% marked “none” or “other.” Obama won Nevada, which has six electoral college votes, in 2008.

In Colorado, Mitt Romney has the advantage according to the early voting numbers. Close to a million voters have turned out in Colorado so far and 38.4% of them were registered Republican. Democrats have taken 35.6% of the vote while 26% were not registered with a party. In 2008, Obama won the state by 8.9%.

The race in Nevada and Colorado will both be close. The race in North Carolina, however, may  have already gone to the Democrats. Close to half of early voters were registered Democrat in the state where 1.7 million people turned out for early voting. Only 31.2% of those voters were registered Republican. The National Journal, however, notes that the picture looked similar in 2008 but ended with a very close race. Obama had a 55.9% lead among early voters but only ended up winning the state .03%. The early voting gap is smaller in 2012 and could indicate a Romney victory.

Ohio, which could be the most important state in the 2012 election, doesn’t report party registration for early voting. What is known is that more than one million voters have turned out for early voting. According to a Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News poll, Obama has a slight 5 point lead in Ohio.

Virginia and Wisconsin, like Ohio, don’t report party registration. More than 250,000 people have voted in Virginia. The CBS poll has Obama favored by two points in Virginia. In Wisconsin, 101,253 people have turned out for early voting.

Both President Obama and Mitt Romney have claimed that they are currently winning the early vote.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said:

“Early voting is giving us solid leads in the battleground states that are going to decide this election … In states like Iowa and Nevada, we’re racking up early vote margins so large that, if they continue at this rate, Romney’s going to have to win a huge percentage on Election Day, and he’s just not going to be able to mathematically get there.”

Rachel Adams, a spokeswoman for Mitt Romney, said:

“The math just isn’t adding up for Democrats,” Adams said. “Momentum is clearly on the Republican side … They’re clearly spinning like tops, and that’s because we’re ahead,” he said. “They’ve finally woken up and realized you have to run a field operation, but they’re still way behind us.”