Good morning everyone, happy start of in-person early voting for Georgia Senate runoffs day

We already have a lot of data in GA: more than 1.2 million absentee ballot requests, including 260k votes.
It's hard to read too much into the data, but on balance it's hard to say that it augurs for a vastly different electorate than the general (in terms of partisanship)

It's hard to read too much into the data because voters didn't exactly have an equal opportunity to request absentee ballots for the runoff and the general election. The general election was coming all year; the runoff and its significance only became evident a month ago

Nonetheless, requests are at about 70% of general election levels, despite fewer opportunities (and evidence that GOPers are even less interested in participating by absentee).
Of these, about half were requested pre-11/3, by voters eligible to request for full cycle absentees

And even this is a tough comparison, as some folks requested ballots over the last three weeks. Today, requests are at 77% of where they were at this point before the general election

In terms of demographics and partisanship, the requests look quite a bit like the general election, tho a bit older, slightly whiter, and slightly more Dem.
Why?:
--fewer post-11/3, non-cyclelong requests, who are younger
--the non-cyclelong requests are more D than the general

In terms of party primary history (by our measure), the absentee requests so far are D45, R29; it was D41 R29 at this point in the general election.
Those who have requested since 11/3 are D49, R14; those who requested beforehand were D41, R42.

In the general election, the late requests--over the last three weeks--were a little bit GOP-leaning compared to those who requested August, for ex.. We'll see if that happens this time

Ultimately we're going to know a lot more once we add the early voting into the picture, which starts today, then we will from these absentee ballots. At the end of it, we could easily have 75% of the vote and it ought to be reasonable to compare to the general, and infer a swing

We can't do that yet. But at the outset, it's hard to say the absentee data is obviously great for either side and there's certainly no reason think this is an '08-type scenario, with a crash in turnout and a vastly different electorate.