This is my first OP on .win, so please forgive me for any formatting errors, etc.

I belong to a group of people that originated on FreeRepublic.com who have been watching early voting numbers in the last several elections. We were able to predict Trump's win in 2016 by looking at FL and NC early voting. We were able to predict the outcome of the senate races (not so much in the house unfortunately) in 2018 using similar data.

This data doesn't show us who voted for whom, but it does show us how many Dems voted vs Republicans and Independents. When compared against previous years data, it can provide some very real indications of where the race stands.

I wanted to let my fellow Pedes know where things are standing as of now.

First off, polling. The public polls are insane and whatever the fuck Nate Silver is smoking, keep that shit away from me, so I can properly think and do my damn job. Watch this video from Kevin McCullough about where things stood as of yesterday with polls.

https://twitter.com/KMCRadio/status/1321540916935446529?fbclid=IwAR0iP7XQmmeYRZ9H02cWXIhh-o9RGrAsHO_McdCAeSmlsw9zsZxxQlIPedg

Quick summary of the video:

Public polls are crap. (duh..lol) Both campaigns (independent of each other) told Kevin that their internals are as follows:

PA Trump +3

FL Trump +3

NC Trump +2

MI Trump +3

WI Tied

AZ Trump +3

He didn’t give a number on MN, but said there was ‘work to be done’ there.

Apparently, according to him, BOTH campaigns are seeing these same numbers, each having no idea he is talking to the other one.

Oh, and the black vote going for Trump at 21%.

Make of that what you will. I've learned to mistrust polls even when I like what they say. I prefer data that I can actually verify.

So, here's at least some of what we actually know:

Florida:

First off, since this election is different from others because of Covid, we started off with a model that took this into account. Polls had consistently shown us that a much larger (60+%) of Democrats were planning on voting by mail instead of on election day, while a much smaller number (<20%) of Republicans planned to do so. Taking these numbers at face value is hardly a stretch considering the mistrust that our side has for gimmicks like VBM. Taking those numbers, we were able to figure that Democrats needed to have a lead in VBM in Florida of 650,000 votes in order to be competetive. The numbers bandied about by the Dem operatives out there put that number even higher, but we stuck with the 650k number.

The bad news for us: They did meet the magic number of a 650k vote lead in FL VBM.

This is where the bad news ends.

Because Republicans came to vote with a vengeance in in person early voting (IPEV) and have cut that lead down to, as of about an hour ago, a total lead of under 190k votes and the number is going down by the minute.

But Carleton, you say, they're still AHEAD???? OH NOES!!!

Chill out. They were ahead in 2016 too. They went into election day 2016 with an 88k (some are saying this number was actually 96k, but I'm gonna stick with the lower number to be conservative) vote lead in combined early voting.

Trump still won by 113,000 votes in 2016.

We are currently (it just updated to 183,000 while I'm writing this) more than on pace to beat that number of 88k (or 96k) going into election day. The numbers from here on out are only going our way. (There are some inside baseball reasons for that, but this is already long-winded enough without getting into the weeds on that)

An aside from me alone: I believe that the election day votes for Dems could be virtually non-existent, considering their covid fear. A part of me suspects that if they didn't already vote by the time election day arrives, they aren't gonna. I think election day could be MORE Republican than it has been before, leading to an even larger victory. I also think that there is a high likelihood of Dem crossovers as a backlash to over-reaching Covid measures in Dem areas. We shall have to see on that.

There is a difference here from 2016: this time the campaign KNOWS they are boned. The video below was posted by a CNBC talking head on Monday detailing exactly what I'm talking about:

https://twitter.com/jakejakeny/status/1320802361447796736

Following his timeline, when Obama made this crazy frazzled speech (his last in FL for the election for sure) he KNEW that FL was gone for them. It was over. That's why he's so crazed in this speech:

[https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1321132988453785602

](https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1321132988453785602) You can keep track of the Florida vote at this site, developed by a FReeper named Bycomey who is also on Twitter as @datarepublican :

https://joeisdone.github.io/florida/

North Carolina:

I keep seeing people fretting about NC. ZOMG...Dems are leading in EV!!! Yeah, they led in 2016 too. In fact, they went into election day with a 310,000 vote lead. Their lead right NOW is 285k and falling fast. We are on pace for about a 200k lead going into election day, so almost 100k votes better than we were in 2016.

NC also gives us racial data. In 2012 when Obama won NC, 23% of the vote was black. In 2016 when Trump won, 21% of the vote was black. This time, the vote is just shy of 20% of the vote. They can NOT win with those numbers.

You can follow the NC vote here (it does not update as much as FL, so it may be behind or update slowly)

https://joeisdone.github.io/northcarolina/

We are doing very well in MI in early voting, NV is looking very good (more details to come on that). Thank you for reading and please GET PEOPLE OUT TO VOTE WITH YOU!!!! I'm bringing 5 people minimum to the polls.

People to follow to help make sense of this or any election:

Twitter:

@LarrySchweikart -- a FReeper, historian, author and all around great guy whom I have had the pleasure of going through every election, good and bad, with for the last 16 years.

@Barnes_Law -- A rarity indeed -- a lawyer who can find his ass with two hands and a guy who knows damn near every county in the country and how it votes. His hobby is betting on elections and he doesn't lose.

@peoples_pundit -- Pollster Richard Baris, one of the very few who got 2016 right.

@RalstonReports -- a puke inducing leftist, but a no-shit guy when it comes to early voting in NV. He's a little shaky right now with what he's seeing, with good reason.

Free Republic:

Usernames: Bort, Byecomey, LS, Ravi, SpeedyInTexas