Democrats’ early voting not altering GOP’s edge

Democrats voting early this year have closed the gap against Republicans in traditionally GOP-leaning Maricopa County, but not enough to drastically shake up the dynamics in next week’s elections, according to the latest voting numbers from the county recorder’s office.

Republicans, who hold a lopsided registration advantage over Democrats, are maintaining that proportional edge based on the number of early ballots that have been mailed out, and the number that have been returned. While both parties, as well as independents, are setting records in terms of early voting, Republicans in Maricopa County have cast tens of thousands more ballots than Democrats, said Yvonne Reed of the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office.

The results, said some political observers, show that the record number of voters expected to participate this year may not help Democrats as they seek to win a number of key races at the county level.

“This is one election year where a high turnout won’t benefit the Democrats,” said Bruce Merrill, a Valley pollster and Arizona State University professor. “The closer you get to 100 percent, the more it will reflect the voter registration advantage, which favors Republicans.”

According to the recorder’s office, there are 693,943 Republicans in the county and 546,159 Democrats. That registration advantage has helped keep nearly every countywide office in GOP hands for the past two decades.

Despite trailing Republicans by roughly 147,000 voters, Democrats had talked about a strong grass-roots effort to register new members and get them to vote early.

The newly emboldened Democrats did make up some ground in early ballots, but not enough to change the makeup the races. As of late Thursday, Republicans had cast about 60,000 more early votes more than Democrats.

Democrats this year requested 271,847 early ballots and returned 179,366, Reed said. Republicans, on the other hand, requested 369,140 early ballots and returned 239,681.

Among the growing number of independent voters, roughly 100,000 ballots have been cast out of the 170,000 requested. The numbers would have to break heavily for Democrats to make a big difference in the election — something not likely to occur, Merrill said.

Merrill, who has studied voting patterns of independents for years, said they traditionally split between the two major parties in proportion to the registration numbers.

County election officials are anticipating a record number of voters to show up at the polls on Tuesday. Some experts have predicted as many as 80 to 85 percent of the county’s 1.7 million registered voters will participate.

Already, early polling stations throughout the Valley have seen long lines and waits as long as 90 minutes to vote. Of the 823,185 early ballot requests, more than half a million have been cast, county officials said Thursday .

With nearly a quarter of registered voters already casting early ballots, campaigns have been forced to spend more money earlier in the election cycle than previous years.

That made it paramount for campaigns to get their messages out early, said political pollster Earl de Berge.

“People who didn’t get their message out early, well, you can’t call them too darn bright” said de Berge. “If you wait to provide information until they go to the polls, you’re running the risk that most voters have already made up their minds. And that’s a big risk.”

One candidate who is taking that risk is Ed Hermes, a Democrat running to unseat incumbent Republican Fulton Brock from the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in the East Valley’s District 1.

Hermes, who is 24, has surprised many by keeping pace with Brock in fundraising. But when it comes to spending, Hermes has decided to hold off until that last couple of weeks before the election.

As of Oct. 15, he had raised more than $100,000 to take on Brock, but had spent only $30,000, according to campaign finance reports released last week. In contrast, Brock, who has held his seat since 1997, had spent about $100,000 on various ads attacking Hermes’ lack of experience while promoting his own long record with the board.

“It’s all being spent as we speak right now,” Hermes said. “We’ve mailed out hundreds of thousands of pieces to homes.”

While no polls have been released on the District 1 race, recent surveys of the sheriff’s and county attorney’s races show Republican incumbents with sizable leads.