2014 Election Early Voting, Exit Polls Point To Trouble For Democrats

The 2014 midterm election early voting and exit poll results point to what many experts have been saying for months — it’s going to be a rough year for Democrats.

Many experts expect Republicans to take control of the Senate this year, the first time since 2006 that the would have control of both houses of Congress. Early voting in several states appears to point toward strong Republican turnout, analysts note.

In Texas, 2014 early voting results indicate that Democrats are not doing enough in their get-out-the-vote efforts to overcome the built-in Republican advantage in the very red state. Election experts say early voting turnout has been an accurate prediction of Election Day, which this year points to trouble for Democrats.

“Certainly, it’s not a good sign for Democrats,” Mark Jones, chairman of the Rice University Political Science Department, said of the turnout data. “The numbers so far look very comparable to 2010.”

Experts believe there could be some early indications on election night whether Democrats might cling to their small advantage in the Senate. Exit polls and the early results from North Carolina, one of the earliest states to report, could hold a key indication. There Democrat incumbent Kay Hagan is trying to hold off Republican Thom Tillis, a race that could determine control of the Senate.

“If Tillis wins in North Carolina, that might be a harbinger of a good night for Republicans,” said Andrew Taylor, a political science professor at North Carolina State University. “If Hagan wins, the Democrats might hold out some hope that they can hold onto the Senate.”

Not all analysts believe that 2014 election early voting results point to a big win for Republicans. Michael P. McDonald, a University of Florida professor and Huffington Post analyst, said he sees what is shaping up to be a close election.

“This is a deep dive into the data, so take a deep breath. If you want to stay in the shallow end, my take on the early vote data — where there are enough statistics to be informative — is that the Republican sweep screaming in the headlines is overblown. Senate control is up for grabs and Democrats have a decent chance to defy the polls. I expect that the election will be so close that we won’t know who won until all ballots are counted and the vote is certified several days following the election, not to mention highly probable run-off elections in Georgia and Louisiana.”

But some pundits warn not to look too much into the 2014 election early voting results and exit polls. Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College, told USA Today that voters would be well-served tuning out the “noise” from television analysts and bloggers. “You just have to wait for the results to come in,” he said.