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Research: party data

5 posts on party data, newest first.

Showing 5 of 15 posts. Post dates other than Oct 23, 2026 are illustrative.

  1. Party data

    Nearly half of the ‘party’ in early-vote trackers is a model

    In 21 states, NBC’s party split is modelled by TargetSmart. Those states hold 48% of this year’s early votes.

    Source: NBC News early-vote tracker (party modelled by TargetSmart in 21 states), accessed Oct 23, 2026; official files in Iowa, Maine and North Carolina; Ohio SOS absentee file; Texas SOS early-vote rosters and 2026 primary rosters. Where it could be checked against registration files, the model matched official counts within about 1 point. “Not marked as modelled” is NBC’s labelling, not a check we ran.

  2. Party data

    Texas early voters: D+3 on the state’s own records, R+1 in the tracker

    Joining state early-vote rosters to 2026 primary rosters gives D 34.7, R 31.3, Other 34.0 across 2.16M early voters.

    Source: Texas Secretary of State Early Voting Roster joined to 2026 primary and runoff rosters; 2022 and 2024 primary rosters from Tarrant, Dallas, Bexar and Hidalgo counties; NBC News / TargetSmart for comparison. State records run through Oct 21; the tracker figure is from Oct 23, and the Democratic share has been falling day by day. Adding 2022 and 2024 primaries in four counties (25% of votes) moved the margin only about 0.6 points.

  3. Party data

    In Ohio, every source agrees on the margin and disagrees on independents

    The state file says D+5.9 with 39.4% Other. The tracker says D+6 with 8% Other.

    Source: Ohio Secretary of State absentee and early voting export (party from last primary), report of Oct 22, 2026, 11:00 ET; NBC News / TargetSmart for comparison. In the state file, Other means no recent partisan primary, not a third party. Two vendor models put the margin 3 to 4 points more Democratic.

  4. Party data

    Your last primary is a good guess at your party, until it isn’t

    Tested on 1,096,068 North Carolina early voters, the last-primary shortcut gets the margin right and the Other share badly wrong.

    Source: North Carolina State Board of Elections 2026 absentee and early-vote file (registered party) and statewide voter history file (primary participation 2017–2026). The proxy moves unaffiliated primary voters into a party, and moves partisans who skip primaries into Other.

  5. Party data

    County maps undercount Democratic early voters by about 16 points

    Weighting each county’s early votes by its 2024 result understated the Democratic margin by 7 to 41 points in 8 states with known party.

    Source: 2026 early votes by county from state files via the UF Election Lab mirror; party registration of early voters in 8 states; 2024 county presidential results. Registration is not vote choice either, so the benchmark has its own bias in states with old Democratic registration, such as Pennsylvania.