I don't like to obsess on polls this late in the game because, frankly, there are sooooo many of them and with Reds and Blues locked in SENATE-SLAMM 2014!! Literally dozens of polls are hitting the fans each day. However I couldn't help look at this Quinnipiac Poll of Iowa which hid this amazing gem four bullets points below the "Joni Ernst Inching Ahead" lede:
Braley leads 57 - 36 percent among those who already have voted.
That's YOUR hard GOTV work getting rewarded. Pollsters guessing what makes a "likely voter" is what gets pollsters in trouble. We have imperical evidence that the Bannock St Project and the hard work of thousands of Democratic volunteers is paying off. But what difference does a lead among a tiny subset of voters mean? Let's look at how tiny the early voting pool is in Iowa:
So far, that's probably a ballot for a Democrat
LIKELY VOTERS....................................
Rep Dem
35% 31%
...
Ind Men Wom
30% 49% 51%
...
Already voted
33%
Quinnipiac, who are a very reputable outfit with no Blue lean are saying that we've already bagged a 21% lead among the 1/3rd of Iowans VERY MUCH MOST LIKELY TO VOTE, AS IN 100%, NO CHANGE-BACKS.
Iowa statistics back this hummungus early voting up. As of yesterday, the state had received 348,968 absentee ballots following 481,970 requests. That is a full third of the total number of ballots cast in the 2010 gubernatorial election (1,047,714). That correlation shows the Q numbers of 33% are no coincidence.
Despite oversampling R's by 4% early voters favor the Dem by 21%. If Braley can take this advantage into election day Ersnt will have to move a mountain of votes to overcome it. This early vote margin would also indicate that we should expect a greater total Dem turnout percentage when the lights go out next Tuesday.
With 10 Senate races within razor margins a GOTV that can push pollings estimates 2% to the left would mean Senators like Braley, Nunn, Begich, Hagen, Udall, Shaheen and Ohrman taking the oath in January. If GOTV efforts the DSCC, MoveON and the OFA have been bragging up for months in pesky fundraising emails can net the results Quinnipiac is finding in Iowa and move the needle 3% or 4%, we could realistically push Landrieu, Pryor to wins as well. We could replace Mitch McConnell with a real woman.
Enthusiasm scissors, meet GOTV rock.