Good news for Iowa Republicans: their second major early vote mailing produced a surge in absentee ballot requests. President Barack Obama won this state in 2012 thanks to votes cast before election day, so shrinking the Democratic advantage in absentee ballots has been a key goal of the GOP’s turnout program.
Bad news for Iowa Republicans, though: tens of thousands of GOP voters received their absentee ballots just in time for Donald Trump’s 2005 videotape to become one of the most talked-about political stories of the year.
Bleeding Heartland has been tracking daily absentee ballot numbers here, using data from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office.
For a while, Republicans were running ahead of their early vote numbers from 2012. But by September 29, the GOP ballot request numbers for this year had dropped below the total for September 27, 2012 (the same number of days before that year’s general election on November 6).
According to multiple sources, a large direct mail piece went out on September 30, aimed at getting Republican voters to request ballots from their county auditors.
As you can see from this table, absentee ballot requests from Iowa Republicans increased sharply last week, sometimes by as much as 10,000 in a single day. County auditors are quick to turn around these requests, so the “ballots sent” number typically lags a day behind at most.
| Statewide absentee ballot numbers since September 30 | ||||||
| Ballots requested (D) | Ballots sent (D) | Ballots requested (R) | Ballots sent (R) | Ballots requested (no-party) | Ballots sent (no-party) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sept 30 | 78,135 | 77,423 | 33,700 | 33,104 | 31,640 | 31,216 |
| October 3 | 89,250 | 87,246 | 43,768 | 43,915 | 37,463 | 36,103 |
| October 4 | 95,681 | 94,868 | 49,384 | 48,875 | 40,546 | 40,098 |
| October 5 | 101,041 | 100,129 | 59,464 | 57,818 | 43,664 | 43,058 |
| October 6 | 107,464 | 106,444 | 66,864 | 66,048 | 46,754 | 46,212 |
| October 7 | 114,526 | 112,818 | 75,759 | 74,106 | 50,075 | 49,374 |
| October 10 | 120,243 | 118,843 | 83,311 | 81,595 | 52,816 | 52,094 |
| October 11 | 128,421 | 126,360 | 95,888 | 93,824 | 57,190 | 56,247 |
| change Sept 30 to Oct 11 | 50,286 | 48,937 | 62,188 | 60,720 | 25,550 | 25,031 |
When an Iowan votes early in person, that counts as an absentee ballot requested and a ballot received by the county auditor on the same day. But most Iowans who vote early do so by mail. They usually receive a ballot within a few days of the county auditor processing the request.
So tens of thousands of registered Republicans received their ballot right before or within a few days after saturation media coverage began of Trump saying he “can do anything” to women, including “grab them by the pussy.” The video inspired thousands of social media and real-life conversations this past weekend, as did Trump’s lame efforts during the second presidential debate to dismiss his comments as “locker room talk.”
As any volunteer who’s done “ballot chase” can tell you, voters don’t always fill out their absentee ballot and mail it back promptly.
This table shows the number of ballots received by county auditors since the second major Iowa GOP early vote mailing went out.
| Statewide totals for early votes cast since September 30 | |||
| Ballots received (D) | Ballots received (R) | Ballots received (no-party) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sept 30 | 6,640 | 2,823 | 1,770 |
| October 3 | 15,481 | 6,990 | 4,440 |
| October 4 | 22,895 | 9,887 | 6,559 |
| October 5 | 30,856 | 13,528 | 9,250 |
| October 6 | 38,355 | 16,932 | 11,599 |
| October 7 | 44,013 | 20,221 | 13,583 |
| October 10 | 49,403 | 23,131 | 15,438 |
| October 11 | 56,553 | 27,933 | 18,416 |
| change Sept 30 to Oct 11 | 49,913 | 25,110 | 16,646 |
As of today, Iowa Republicans have requested 67,955 more ballots than have been received by county auditors. Some of those may be in the mail en route to an auditor, but the vast majority are likely sitting on a table or counter belonging to someone who has been hearing about the Trump tapes since last Friday.
How many of them will feel less inspired to return the ballot now? How many will leave the presidential line blank or vote for a third-party candidate, or even for Hillary Clinton, out of disgust for their party’s presidential nominee?
Iowa Republicans have succeeded so far in holding the Democratic early vote advantage below where it was four years ago. Democrats had requested about 46,000 more absentee ballots by October 9, 2012 (the same number of days before the election) than they have today. In contrast, Republicans are only about 7,000 absentee ballot requests behind where the party was at this point in the 2012 campaign.
On the other hand, GOP strategists can’t be pleased to see their big jump in absentee ballot numbers coincide with a scandal that reinforced every damaging narrative about Trump’s demeaning attitude toward women.
OCTOBER 12 UPDATE: Absentee ballot requests from registered Republicans increased by more than 8,000 to to 104,780 statewide. Ballots received by county auditors from Republicans increased by about 4,500 to 32,482 statewide. Roughly 70,000 unreturned absentee ballots lie in the hands of GOP voters while Trump continues to implode and more women come forward to say Trump assaulted them.
Apparently Republican blogger Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Iowa GOP, and I are on the same wavelength.
OCTOBER 13 UPDATE: The latest daily figures show more than 11,000 new absentee ballot requests from registered Republicans, compared to about 8,000 from Democrats and a little less than 5,000 from no-party voters since yesterday. But county auditors received about 7,500 more ballots from Democrats since October 12, compared to about 5,000 from Republicans and 3,000 from no-party voters.
At this writing, the return rate for ballots requested from Democrats is about 49.5 percent (143,665 ballots requested, 71,103 received by county auditors).
The return rate for Iowa Republicans is about 32.5 percent (115,711 ballots requested, 37,626 received by county auditors).
More than 75,000 registered Republicans are in possession of absentee ballots they haven’t returned yet.
LATER UPDATE: As of October 14, both Iowa Democrats and Republicans added a little less than 7,000 new absentee ballot requests. Democrats returned about 7,000 more ballots since the previous day, Republicans about 5,500.
Nearly 80,000 registered Iowa Republicans have requested absentee ballots but not returned them.