Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Beto O’Rourke has gotten more voters under 30 who never voted before to already vote in Texas.
Tom Bonier of Target Smart tweeted:
The number of people under the age of 30 who have already early voted in Texas, never having voted at all before (137,762), exceeds the TOTAL number of first time voters in any other state.
— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) November 1, 2018
Obviously, we don’t know which candidates these new voters who have never voted before are supporting, but the odds are really good that Republican Senator Ted Cruz has not inspired a wave of young first-time voters under age 30 to head to the polls in Texas. It is a safe guess that the young first-time voters who are turning out are doing so for Beto O’Rourke.
The Surge of New Voters Is Why Polls Could Be Underestimating Democratic Support
The surge in young voters isn’t just a Texas thing.
It is also happening in North Carolina:
So what's causing the surge in NC? Young voters. Voters under the age of 40 were 10% of votes cast at this point in '14, and are now 15%. pic.twitter.com/MR15j4rIFC
— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) November 1, 2018
The influx of new or young voters makes polling in these Senate races very difficult because pollsters rely on likely, or people that have voted in elections before. Pollsters don’t contact first-time voters. A wave of new voters, especially if they support one party over the other is going to throw the polling off. This isn’t the pollsters’ fault. First time voters are one the variables that make polling an inexact science.
Democrats have been over performing the polls since Trump took office. Democrats have outperformed the polls in special elections, the 2017 general election, and the 2018 primaries, so it would be in line with recent behavior if Democrats outperformed the polling results on Tuesday.
We discussed why Democrats might overperform on the Politicus Pod:
A win by Beto O’Rourke over Ted Cruz would be the biggest upset of 2018. The influx of new voters and the early voting numbers suggest that O’Rourke has a chance to win, and it could be a rare long night for Republicans in Texas.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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