Approximately 20 percent of the Iowans who will participate in this year’s general election had already cast ballots two weeks before election day.

Iowa’s 99 county auditors had received 311,007 absentee ballots as of October 25.

In the last presidential election, 1,589,899 Iowans voted–a record number in absolute terms. Two weeks before the 2012 general election, Iowa county auditors had received 376,065 ballots, which turned out to be about 23.6 percent of total votes cast. I expect this year’s turnout to be a bit lower than the 2012 level, because this year’s major-party presidential nominees are unusually unpopular.

As of yesterday, 487,370 Iowans had requested absentee ballots. At the same point in the 2012 campaign, 542,096 Iowans (more than a third of the number who eventually participated) had done so.

Follow me after the jump for more on how this year’s early vote numbers compare to the last presidential election.

The tables enclosed below show how many absentee ballots Iowa voters have requested and county auditors have received as of October 25 and at the same point during the 2012 campaign. I’m using October 23, 2012 for comparison because that date represents the same number of days before the November 6 general election.

Bleeding Heartland’s been updating this year’s absentee ballot numbers every weekday; click through for the daily tables.

Tactical choices by Democrats to start GOTV a bit later this year, and to focus more resources on early voting in person as opposed to through the mail, produced some worrying absentee ballot numbers a month ago.

Iowa Democrats have gradually improved their early vote totals since then, but still aren’t positioned to match the absentee ballot lead the party enjoyed going into election day 2012.

Key points:

• As of October 25, Iowa Democrats had requested 42,446 more absentee ballots than Republicans. A week earlier, the lead was 28,944. But as of October 23, 2012, Iowa Democrats had submitted 73,087 more absentee ballot requests than Republicans.

• As of October 25, county auditors had received 41,095 more absentee ballots from Democrats than from Republicans. A week earlier, the comparable lead was 38,069. As of October 23, 2012, the Democratic lead was 56,303. Note: when an Iowan votes early in person, that counts as a ballot requested and a ballot received on the same day.

• At this writing, Iowa Republicans have requested as many absentee ballots this year as they had at the same point in 2012, while Democrats are at only 87.6 percent of their 2012 ballot request number. As Pat Rynard has noted, President Barack Obama won this state by 6 points in the last cycle, so Democrats don’t necessarily need to match the 2012 early vote lead for Hillary Clinton to narrowly defeat Donald Trump this year. Rynard figures that if Democrats can hit 90 percent of their 2012 early vote numbers, Clinton will be within striking distance. I would add that this year’s Iowa winner will likely receive fewer votes than Obama did in 2012, both because of lower turnout and because of more people choosing third-party candidates.

• Absentee ballot requests from no-party voters in Iowa have ticked up to 80 percent of the number at this point in 2012. Four years ago, Democrats did a much better job than Republicans at identifying supporters aligned with neither party and mobilizing them to vote early. (Obama couldn’t have carried the early vote in Iowa by 137,355 without winning a majority of the 181,260 no-party voters who cast absentee ballots that year, because going into election day, registered Democrats had banked just 68,359 more votes than Republicans.)

• Democrats continue to have a better absentee ballot return rate in Iowa: it’s now up to 68.5 percent, whereas county auditors have received 61.4 percent of the ballots requested by Republicans. Iowa GOP sources are quietly confident about their “ballot chase” program, but I suspect a lot of voters are sitting on their ballots trying to decide what to do about the top line. It was bad luck for the party’s largest early vote mailing to go out just in time for Trump’s meltdown following the release of his “grab them by the pussy” videotape.

Any comments about the presidential race are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: Added below the early vote numbers from October 26. The Democratic lead rose to 44,293 in absentee ballot requests but dropped slightly to 40,836 in absentee ballots received by county auditors.

Absentee ballots requested by Iowa voters as of October 25, 2016
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	55,030	37,110	29,497	365	126,533
IA-02	59,500	38,297	28,353	383	126,533
IA-03	57,357	45,154	23,709	369	126,589
IA-04	39,335	48,215	24,393	303	112,246
statewide	211,222	168,776	105,952	1,420	487,370

Absentee ballots received by Iowa county auditors as of October 25, 2016
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	37,473	22,894	16,920	204	77,491
IA-02	42,061	24,599	17,231	237	84,128
IA-03	38,659	27,500	13,446	210	79,815
IA-04	26,497	28,602	14,283	191	69,573
statewide	144,690	103,595	61,880	842	311,007

Absentee ballots requested by Iowa voters as of October 23, 2012
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	63,954	37,114	37,732	146	138,946
IA-02	68,665	39,134	37,189	191	145,179
IA-03	62,038	45,315	29,169	149	136,671
IA-04	46,412	46,419	28,333	136	121,300
statewide	241,069	167,982	132,423	622	542,096

Absentee ballots received by Iowa county auditors as of October 23, 2012
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	46,139	26,188	22,968	89	95,384
IA-02	50,713	28,285	23,489	143	102,630
IA-03	44,357	31,830	17,640	78	93,905
IA-04	33,810	32,413	17,830	93	84,146
statewide	175,019	118,716	81,927	403	376,065

Absentee ballots requested by Iowa voters as of October 26, 2016
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	57,160	38,455	31,001	394	127,010
IA-02	61,764	39,865	29,814	411	131,854
IA-03	59,705	46,844	25,059	393	132,001
IA-04	40,655	49,827	25,610	322	116,414
statewide	219,284	174,991	111,484	1,520	507,279

Absentee ballots received by Iowa county auditors as of October 26, 2016
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	40,470	25,545	18,984	236	85,235
IA-02	45,725	27,648	19,278	267	92,918
IA-03	41,942	30,738	15,156	236	88,072
IA-04	28,398	31,768	15,804	203	76,173
statewide	156,535	115,699	69,222	942	342,398