If We Must Know

Florida

Black voters in Florida early voting are down in 2016 delta 2012.

Along these same lines, Millennials aren’t doing early voting in most states in 2016 like they did in 2012.

I don’t write that much into early voting partisan or demographic breakdowns, or cycle-over-cycle trends, to be honest.  However, if there’s any there there to the black vote in Florida, then it’ll be true with the early voting and election day black vote everywhere, which is what I’ve been telling you for the last 16 months, that Trump won’t get the black vote (realistic ceiling:  15%) as much as he will neutralize it, and I followed that up with the axiom that black voters in swing states who voted for Obama four current years ago but stay home in the current year are casting a half a vote for Trump.  Now we have our first real world evidence that my prediction is turning out to be correct.

As far as Millennials, especially under-30, another one of my axioms is that the politician who banks on U-30 and Hispanics is already writing his own concession speech.  Millennials weren’t that big of a factor in 2008, even as that current year was a cycle in which the under-30 vote mattered more than it had since 1972, the first cycle 18-year olds had the universal national franchise.  And in 2012, they were a virtual non-entity, and if these early voting trends hold on through election day, they’ll be a total non-entity now.