With as many as one-third of voters expected to cast their ballots before Election Day, preliminary data from several key battleground states show more Democrats than Republicans have voted early.
While the information should hardly be considered predictive of how the election may turn, accounting for just a fraction of the vote, it does offer a window into the loyalties of this growing segment of the electorate. The early tabulations of party affiliations seem to bolster polling that shows Senator Barack Obama’s campaign on the electoral offensive in states that President Bush won in 2004.
Significantly more Democrats than Republicans have cast ballots at this early stage in Iowa, North Carolina, New Mexico and Ohio, according to data analyzed by The New York Times.
Information from counties representing more than 90 percent of Nevada’s population show Democrats also holding a commanding advantage in early voter turnout.
In Florida, however, Republicans appear to hold the upper hand, while in Colorado, early voting is about evenly split among Republicans and Democrats. Mr. Bush won all those states in 2004.
The dates when early voting begins and ends vary by state. Experts cautioned that the full impact of early voting cannot be known until the choices of those without party affiliations become more clear on Election Day.
In years past, however, early voting has tended to favor Republicans, according to voting experts. Mr. Bush won the early vote in 2004 in his race against Senator John F. Kerry, 60 percent to 40 percent. Mr. Bush won early voters by a similar margin in his 2000 run against Vice President Al Gore. As a result, the preliminary data from some states has surprised certain experts.
“In the past, what you’ve seen is early voters tend to be older, had higher incomes and lean more Republican and that trend has held over the past elections,” said Paul Gronke, executive director of the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College in Oregon. “But what we are seeing now when you look at the numbers is that they are more African-American, Hispanic and the young. I look at this and I go, ‘Wow!’ This is quite different. It is a lot different from what we’ve seen before and it has to raise concerns for the G.O.P.”
The early voting is part of a broader transformation in the way Americans vote. In the past, absentee voting was reserved mainly for those unable to make it to the polls on Election Day, whether because of sickness, business or military service. Now more than 30 states allow voters to cast early ballots either in person or by mail without requiring an excuse.
In 2004, 22 percent of voters cast an early presidential ballot; in 2000, 16 percent voted early. But a national poll of 2,500 registered voters conducted from Oct. 16 to 19, released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center, indicated the number could grow in 2008, with 24 percent saying they planned to vote before Election Day and 7 percent indicating they already had.
Both figures were up significantly from a survey conducted in the same period in 2004. The poll found Mr. Obama held a commanding advantage among early voters, which Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew center, said could be problematic for Senator John McCain.
“If one candidate has the momentum at an early stage before Election Day, it’s going to favor that candidate,” Mr. Kohut said. “If there’s a last minute surge because of some event to the trailing candidate, well, the train has left for an awful lot of people these days.”
Some of the most detailed early voting data examined by The Times came from North Carolina, a state Republicans have rarely had to defend but Mr. Obama is vigorously contesting. More than 481,000 ballots have been cast in the state, a significant increase from this time in 2004.
At this point, 56 percent of the early voters in North Carolina are Democrats, compared with 27 percent who are Republicans and 16 percent unaffiliated. Democrats also had a slightly larger share of white voters and represented more than 90 percent of the black vote, which could help turn the tide in a state that last voted for a Democrat for president in 1976.
“From our perspective, it looks very good,” said Jerry Meek, chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party.
Michael McDonald, a voting expert at George Mason University, who has examined early voting data in several states, said the data from North Carolina was stunning.
“North Carolina, in particular, is off the charts,” Mr. McDonald said. “This is outside of what we expected.”
In Iowa, meanwhile, more than 200,000 ballots have already been received by the state. Democrats have returned about 52 percent of them compared with 20 percent for Republicans.
But Caleb Hunter, executive director of the Iowa Republican Party, played down the disparity, pointing out more Democrats than Republicans voted by absentee in 2004 but President Bush still won the state. He said Democrats in the state have tended to focus more on early voting than Republicans.
“A bit of it is culture,” Mr. Hunter said. “Our voters like to go to the polls on Election Day. That’s part of their citizenship, filling out the registration, standing in the line, so we focus a lot of our efforts and time and energy on that program.”
In New Mexico, the breakdown so far has been: Democrats 55 percent, Republicans 35 percent, independents 11 percent. In Ohio, it has been: Democrats 46 percent, Republicans 24 percent and independents 30 percent.
In Colorado, Republicans represented 40 percent of the combined early vote, while Democrats had 38 percent.
In Florida, more than 785,000 ballots have been cast, with Republicans accounting for about 47 percent of them, compared with 39 percent for Democrats and 11 percent for independents.
“We are essentially implementing the same successful program that Bush-Cheney used to win Florida in 2004,” said Buzz Jacobs, the southeast regional campaign manager for the McCain campaign.
In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, Mike DuHaime, political director for the McCain campaign said the Republican candidate was working to turn out early voters across the country by sending them mailings, calling their homes and directing canvassers to their doors.
The Obama campaign has also worked to capitalize on early-voting laws. Pitching early voting has become a mandatory part of Mr. Obama’s message, which he employed as he campaigned Tuesday in South Florida.
“Whoever comes and sits in that chair, tell them to early-vote,” Mr. Obama told the proprietor of a barbershop he visited in Fort Lauderdale. “No excuses.”
The Obama campaign has built databases on all of their supporters, focusing specifically on encouraging early voting among people who have long commutes or children or other potential obstacles to voting on Election Day. “The early data,” said Jim Messina, chief of staff for the Obama campaign, “says we have been even more successful than we had hoped.”
Jeff Zeleny and Michael Cooper contributed reporting.
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