According to the United States Elections Project, 774,690 Georgians voted early in 2010.
As of yesterday (Nov. 1), 934,485 Georgians had voted early in 2014.
That’s a remarkable increase. But how many of those early voters would have voted on Tuesday? It’s a critical question.
Also, check out this demographic breakdown of those early voters in Georgia:
White: 58.1%
Black: 30.8%
Hispanic: .5%
Other: 1.0%
New registrants, race unknown: 9.6%
Given the disproportionately high level of new black voter registration, we can probably assume that as of right now, the white vote has been about 62 percent and the black vote has been about 34 percent.
Also, check out this post by Jim Galloway at the Political Insider at the AJC: African-American share of early ballots up 13 percent over 2010.
The Hispanic vote and vote by other minorities is very low so far, but if, after Tuesday, the black vote is still over 30 percent, it’s exceedingly likely that Michelle Nunn will be Georgia’s next Senator. I like Nunn’s chances to beat Perdue considerably better than Jason Carter’s chances to beat Nathan Deal, but most polls have been assuming that blacks would make up no more than 28 percent of the electorate.
Perdue’s fate might end up being determined by Kingston voters in the Savannah area and in south Georgia generally. Kingston stomped Perdue in the southern part of the state, and — in my estimation — Perdue hasn’t done nearly enough to bring those voters to his side and to encourage them to vote.