Washington state-based political data intelligence firm Voter Science posted a snapshot analysis on its blog Sunday evening of how things looked based on ballot returns reported from the Secretary of State. For Republicans hoping to hang on to the critical seat, there’s a mix of good and bad news in what their evaluation finds.
(No real spoiler here. The election in the very purple East King County district will almost certainly be decided by swing voters.)
To generate its findings, Voter Science matched returned ballots against to its own database of voters that have assigned a party identification based on a mess of available information.
The result? According to data models, the GOP has turned out a greater percentage of Republican voters compared to Democrats with their base. That may sound great except that there are far fewer Republicans than Democrats in the 45th. The math could get dicey, and the battle over swing votes will be decisive, as Voter Science explains:
[The 45th legislative district is a] predominantly Democrat district. In ‘14 and ’16 house races, Democrat’s average victory in LD 45 has been around 58%. The district also voted over a 2:1 for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Kim Wyman and Andy Hill are the only Republicans to have won this district. …
Of voters identified as GOP, 28% have voted. Of voters identified as Democrats, 23% have voted. Of voters identified as Independents, only 14% have voted. So while the democrats may have raw volume of numbers, the GOP has driven higher turnout amongst their base.
[Full disclosure: The author of this piece has a minority share in Voter Science, but had no involvement in producing the analysis itself.]
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