On Monday, November 4, Jim Messina, who served as former President Barack Obama’s campaign manager in 2012, appeared on Inside With Jen Psaki. During his appearance, Psaki and Messina spoke briefly about early voting trends and what they could tell us about the outcome of the presidential election. More specifically, Messina highlighted the rise in early voting among registered Republicans.
“Republicans didn’t do what they did last time. Last time, Trump said, ‘Don’t early vote.’ And so they didn’t. Republicans do have an advantage in early vote numbers. When the early vote come in, it’s going to look a little bit different than 2020, and that’s scary,” Messina explained.
According to Catalist, a for-profit data management company based in the District of Columbia, registered Democrats have cast 37% of pre-election ballots. Meanwhile, registered Republicans have cast 35% of ballots prior to Election Day. In comparison, Democrats held a 12-percentage point lead in this department in 2012.
While early voting may trend in Trump’s favor, Messina is not doubting Harris’ ability to become the next President when all of the ballots are counted. The former campaign manager believes the Vice President holds a distinct advantage among younger voters and women.
“But when you kind of dig into the numbers, the numbers that I care the most about are two blocs: women voters and young voters, and those two voting blocs are coming big,” he continued.
“Women voters make up 55 percent of the early voters, and in the past 10 days, young voters in these battleground states are coming out — in what looks to be, for early vote, historic numbers — and that makes the Harris campaign very, very happy.”
