What's the State of the Primary Election in District 1 as of Close of Business (COB) yesterday-- 8-15-2020?

 Early voting has now ended in Escambia County for the August 18th Primary Election.  As of COB yesterday--Countywide 19.60% of registered voters had cast their collective ballots already either by early voting or by absentee ballot as allowed by law.  The countywide number of early votes is static now--as that voting has concluded.  Absentee ballots, however, will continue to arrive and be counted Monday and Tuesday--so it appears that it will be a 20% turnout at least by the time physical, at-precinct ballots begin to be cast Tuesday.

So how many votes will that leave for election day on Tuesday?  What percentage of votes are still out and to be expected on election day?

As I predicted last week, I believe the majority of votes for this primary have already been cast, and that the majority of the votes will have been made via absentee.  I believe we will have a bump on election day, which will push the total a bit higher and that will ultimately be a larger number total than the early voter total, but less than the absentee vote total.  I arrive at this conclusion by looking at the turnout in non-presidential primary elections in Escambia County over the last 15 years--where turnout for such primaries was as follows:

2018-30.8% of eligible voters voted in the primary

2016-27% of eligible voters voted in the primary

2014-16.78% of eligible voters voted in the primary

2012-26.34% of eligible voters voted in the primary

2010-25.15% of eligible voters voted in the primary

2008-25.31% of eligible voters voted in the primary

2006-29.88% of eligible voters voted in the primary

So throwing out the outliers in 2014 and 2018 while averaging the other years gives an average participation percentage (of total eligible voters) of  26.73.  I happen to believe that the actual percentage of voters that will participate in this election will be a bit higher, but not much.  I believe it will be between 27.5%-29%.  And with 20% effectively in the bag already via early and absentee votes cast through yesterday--this means a whopping 69% to 73% of voters that will vote in this year's primary----again using historical data to estimate this--have already cast their ballots.

This means only 27%-31% of the total votes are yet to be cast and counted.  Meaning the election, for the most part, has already happened.

So what does this mean for my primary, the one I am competing in right now and that ends on Tuesday?

With 8,635 votes cast thus far equating to 18.24% eligible District 1 voters, and assuming the middle of the estimated participation range I described above, or 28.5% of eligible voters total to turn out----I'm predicting that 13, 489 voters total will participate in my primary election in District 1.  With 8,635 having already cast their ballots--this leaves just 4,854 left to be cast on Tuesday--just over one-third of the total that will be cast.  Or put another way---2/3 of this primary is already "in the can."

But hey, it's 2020 and this year with COVID-19 and a crashing economy plus hyper-toxic politics---this  is anything but your average year.  

Therefore anything could happen.

Watch.

This is not my campaign website, however campaign-related topics are discussed in this post and therefore in an abundance of caution I offer the following disclaimer:

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