Colorado

About 1.5 million people have voted, and Republicans outnumber Democrats 37 percent to 35 percent. Those numbers are a reversal from four years ago at this time. Inevitably, Obama won the early vote by 9 percentage points in 2008, giving him a big enough cushion to win the state, despite narrowly losing the Election Day vote.

Early voting in Colorado is expected to account for about 80 percent of all votes cast, giving it more weight than in other states.

BREAKDOWN: Romney UP 2 POINTS VERSUS Obama’s 9 IN 2008

Colorado is probably leaning strongly for Romney – a very bad sign for Obama. That’s an 11 point change from 2008. If you apply that to most of Obama’s victories in 2008, you get all sorts of shifts, including Minnesota, Ohio, Virginia and New Hampshire. Because Colorado is 80 percent already it’s a good indicator of the huge shift away from Obama.
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Florida

About 3.5 million people have voted, and 43 percent were Democrats and 40 percent were Republicans. Four years ago at this time, Democratic early voters had a 9 percentage point lead over Republicans.

Obama won Florida’s early vote by 10 percentage points in 2008, getting 400,000 more early votes than McCain, enough to offset McCain’s advantage on Election Day.

Democrats quickly took the lead among all early voters, once in-person early voting started. But the margins are slim.

The Obama campaign acknowledges it must do better among Florida’s Election Day voters than Obama did on 2008, when McCain won the Election Day vote by 5 percentage points.

BREAKDOWN: Obama has 3 points versus 10 in 2008. McCain was able to pull 5 points on Election Day. So Romney is likely to win Florida by at least two points, probably four or five based on the voting trend.

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Iowa

About 584,000 people have voted, already exceeding Iowa’s total number of early votes in 2008. So far this year, 43 percent of early voters were Democrats and 32 percent were Republicans.

Four years ago, Obama won the early vote in Iowa by a whopping 27 percentage points, 63 percent to 36 percent. McCain, meanwhile, won the Election Day vote by about 1,800 votes — less than a percentage point. Together, they added up to a 10-point victory for Obama.

BREAKDOWN: Obama required a 27 point early voting lead to score a ten point victory on Election day. Meaning there is a 17 point shift for election day. Obama has only 11 points, though, so Romney scores Iowa with 6 points.

Nevada

About 627,000 people have voted, and 44 percent were Democrats and 37 percent were Republicans. Four years ago, Obama won Nevada’s early vote big, 59 percent to 39 percent. Obama also won Nevada’s Election Day vote on his way to a comfortable 13-point win over McCain.

The Romney campaign argues that Obama isn’t doing nearly as well among early voters in Nevada as he did in 2008. The Obama campaign argues that it doesn’t have to.

BREAKDOWN: Obama required 20 percent early voter lead to score 13 point victory. Obama has a 7 point lead. Putting those 13 points in play towards Romney. DEAD HEAT – Unknown.
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North Carolina

About 2.3 million people have voted, and 48 percent of them were Democrats and 32 percent of them were Republicans. Four years ago at this time, Democrats had a slightly larger lead over Republicans, and Obama won the early vote by 11 percentage points.

Obama lost the Election Day Vote by 17 percentage points in 2008. But the early vote was much bigger than the Election Day vote, resulting in Obama’s narrow win.

Obama’s campaign cites the big lead for Democrats among early voters, while Romney’s campaign argues that even a small shift toward the Republicans could flip the state to Romney.

BREAKDOWN: 2008 Obama won with 11 points even though losing election day by 17 points. Obama has 16 points.
Will depend on election day turnout and whether democrats in NC stay don’t vote outside the party for President, which will be higher this time than in 2008.
Leaning Obama.

Ohio

About 1.3 million people have voted, and 29 percent were Democrats and 23 percent were Republicans. Forty-seven percent were unaffiliated, more than enough voters to swing the state to either candidate.

In Ohio, voters are not required to give a party affiliation when they register to vote.

In 2008 according to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted’s website, Democrats out numbered Republicans by 174,000, 1.48 million to 1.30 million. The unaffiliated voters totaled 5.1 million.

In 2012, Democrats went from 1.48 million down to 827,000. That is a loss of 653,000. Republicans went from 1.3 million down to 894,000. That is a loss of 412,000.

The most dramatic change however was in unaffiliated voters. This segment of voters rose from 5.1 million to 6.3 million. That is an increase of 1.2 million more unaffiliated voters in the Buckeye state.

This was a cataclysmic shift away from the two major parties, although a larger shift away from the Democrats.

This gives Republicans the advantage in two distinct ways. First, their are now 67,000 more registered Republicans than their are Democrats. Second, more voters decided to leave the Democrat Party in favor of being unaffiliated/undeclared or Independent.

BREAKDOWN: Obama has a six point edge in early voting.
Based on the shift away from Democrats in the state, and the huge surge of independents, which tend to vote for the challenger, this will likely be lost to Romney on Election day. TOSS UP/Leaning Romney

All these early vote numbers point towards a big win for Romney, and Obama doing nowhere near as well in the early voting as he did in 2008 despite the last ditch attempt to spin it.