Overall, turnout was down in the Florida Republican primary from 2008. In 2008, 1.95 million votes were cast in the Republican primary, compared to 1.67 million cast in 2012 (reported by the Florida State Board of Elections as of the morning of Feb. 1). A decline of 280,000 votes. What...

We all know that President Obama won his party's primary in New Hampshire. What you may not know is that Obama only won 79.5% of the vote. Second place in the New Hampshire Democratic primary went to Ron Paul, with 3.7%, Mitt Romney was third with 2.9% of...

Perhaps the most important undercurrent in American politics that the Iowa Republican caucuses reveal is that the raging Tea Party enthusiasm fever of 2010 that led to historic Republican election victories has broken.

Participation in the Iowa Republican caucuses was strong. Over the past four years, participation in the...

Let the 2012 election begin!

The first absentee overseas ballots have been returned for the New Hampshire presidential primary. The Pew Center on the States reports that 25 of the 163 ballots sent to overseas military and civilian voters have been returned. By federal law, 45...

Texas Republicans had a strategy to circumvent the Obama Department of Justice to implement their partisan gerrymanders for Congress and the state legislature.

They had a strategy that turns out to have backfired badly.

As required by the Voting Rights Act, states such as Texas that are covered...

Cincinnati.com reports that Friday evening, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision that Democrats can proceed with a petition gathering drive to place a referendum on the November 2012 ballot that would overturn the state's Republican congressional gerrymander. (The Court is composed of 6...

"Time keeps on slipping into the future." -- Fly Like an Eagle, The Steve Miller Band

What a difference a decade makes. A new online tool from the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York visualizes the changes in demography that have occurred between...

Among the oldest saws in campaigns is that voter turnout will determine the election outcome. Of course this is true, but is has deeper meaning in light of a growing age gap that has emerged in recent elections.

You see, in midterm elections, the youth do not vote. In...

Last week, the Census Bureau provided the first peek at the results from the 2010 census. As of April 1, 2010, there were 308.7 million people in the United States. Census Bureau Director Bob Groves also announced state population totals that are used to determine how many congressional...

Nov. 4 -- What explains the Republican victories in 2010 and what may they tell us about 2012? It's obvious that the candidates who get the most votes will win. But there's an important kernel of wisdom there: Who wins elections depends heavily on who shows up to vote.

That...

Prior to the election, I forecasted a national turnout rate among those eligible to vote of 41.3%. Now with actual election results available, I estimate the national turnout rate is 41.4%.

These post-election turnout rate estimates are based on the number of votes counted as of...

On election night pundits fill air time speculating on what it means if a particular race is or is not called by the media. I have been inside the boiler rooms calling election outcomes for the media since 2002, so I know how this works in practice. While not as...

I am forecasting that 41.3 percent of those eligible to vote will cast a ballot in the 2010 election and that 28.8 percent of those votes will either be cast in-person prior to Election Day or by mail. I provide state-by-state and national forecasts here.

These forecasts...

Day-by-day tracking of in-person early voters in Clark County, Nevada shows an uptick of registered Democrats and Independents in the last week of the early voting period. Registered Republicans, on the other hand, showed their best performance of the entire early voting period on Monday, but their numbers have since...

Where are we on early voting and what does it tell us about possible election outcomes?

It's a mixed bag, which is opening the door to both sides claiming that the numbers show they are ahead in the early vote. That said, there are some interesting developments within key states...

Nate Silver, political statistician extraordinaire, has posted an analysis of early voting partisan registration statistics, in states that report them, drawing upon a story by Molly Ball in Politco. I'll cut to the chase. Here is what Nate concludes in his analysis, which is largely consistent...

President Obama is on a campaign swing through four Western states. Why these Western states and why now?

Here is a simple answer. California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington share two things in common: They all have competitive races for Senate or governor, and they all have high levels of early...

With the help of reports from California and updates from other states, the number of persons who have voted in the 2010 midterm election is now known to exceed 1.5 million voters. The number is likely much higher, given that some states are not reporting and other state reports are...

Something is afoot in Iowa. Not only have nearly 120,000 voters already cast their ballot, registered Democrats are returning their mail ballots at a higher rate than Republicans in nearly every Iowa county. This, in part, explains the approximately 5:3 partisan registration advantage Democrats have over Republicans among mail ballots...

Ohioans have been casting their ballots for the 2010 midterm elections since September 28th. Voters in other states have also begun casting their ballots. By and large, these ballots are dribbling in, as they typically do so soon in the early voting period. Early voting usually begins to pick up...