A few readers are suggesting that Rudy could overshoot his numbers in tonight’s primary because of the state’s extensive early voting. This does not just refer to the official ‘early voting’ that began 15 days before today’s primary. There’s also old-fashioned absentee ballots, which the Times says “were distributed as early as Dec. 15.”
That’s significant because that’s back in the Rudy era. So you could figure, especially since the Rudy! campaign has said it put a lot of legwork into early voting, that Rudy may have an unknown stash of votes cast before Floridians decided he was a joke.
But there’s a problem with this theory. As far as I know, the polling organizations are trying to take account of early voting. So, for instance, this SurveyUSA poll notes that the organization determined who had already voted and how they voted. So, as long as the questioning methodology is sound, the existence of early voting should not skew the numbers.
All of which means that Rudy is probably toast just like he looks.
