“The biggest takeaway from Tuesday night is that Republican attitudes in regard to mail-in voting needs to change,” he continued. “Right now, it’s like we’re running a 100-yard race against the Democrats and giving them a 45-yard head start. Both parties have limited resources, but while they work during the 50 days of early voting collecting and banking early votes … we’re just collecting promises to show up on Election Day; it’s not sustainable, and Democrats get better at it every cycle.”
When all the dust is settled, it will be interesting to see what the percentage of mail-in votes for Democrats was in the final count; anything over 40% is a real problem for Republicans going forward if they don’t right their mail-in ballot ship. …
Currently, Democrats are miles ahead of Republicans at targeting specific races and voters. Through mail balloting, they put those voters in the bank early. This year, they executed and focused and performed; that’s why they have probably saved their U.S. Senate majority, based on vote counts as of this writing. It’s why they were able to limit Republican gains in the House to maybe just a handful, or maybe none at all.
A lot of pollsters missed this, because Democrats had timed a lot of their advertising to hit right when the early voting began — especially their messages on abortion. This paid dividends. They banked their voters and created a mirage for analysts who thought the races were closer than they calculated.
Republicans can complain about the current rules all they want, but what they need to do is wake up and start competing with the Democrats where they are. Otherwise, they’re just leaving winnable races on the table.
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