Update: For those interested in an expert opinion on early voting and polling drop by DJ Drummond today – end update

If early voting in Florida is any indication what will happen across this country come next Tuesday (and there is little reason to assume it will be some crazy outlier well outside the norm) then Obama and the Dems are going to be getting a lesson from the American voters. They are the lead incumbent party in a country where 90% think the country is off track. And how America feels about them and Obama is showing in some early polling of early voters:

Democrats are beaming that their party is outperforming the Republicans in early voting, releasing numbers Wednesday that show registrants of their party ahead 54 percent to 30 percent among the 1.4 million voters who have gone to the polls early. 

“We’re thrilled at the record turnout so far,” said Democratic Party of Florida spokesman Eric Jotkoff. “It’s a clear indication that Democrats want to elect Barack Obama and Democrats up and down the ballot so that we can start creating good jobs, rebuilding our economy and getting our nation back on track.”

But party breakdowns for turnout aren’t the same as final tallies, and at least one poll offered a different view for the campaign of Republican John McCain. 

A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll gave McCain a 49-45 lead over Democrat Barack Obama among Floridians who have already voted. 

And Republicans continued to show a traditional strength, leading 50 percent to the Democrats’ 30 percent in the 1.2 million absentee ballots already returned.

Democrats have an almost 2 to 1 advantage in numbers, yet McCain leads in the vote totals. RCP has Obama up 3.5% in Florida – totally opposite this massive wave of early voting.  According to a GMU site monitoring early polling Florida is already seeing almost 34% of the total 2004 vote for Florida – stunning. And the advantage for Dems on this site is 45.4% to 39% (including absentee). So with a really high 6.4% advantage in turnout Obama is losing by 4%. That is some massive defection numbers away from Obama. And it would seem a large turnout is not a bad thing at all for McCain-Palin, since it will swamp the Obama strengths in certain demographics.

If this is an indication of things to come, the liberals are in for a rough week. H/T Reader Archtop and Wizbang

Update: Bear with me folks because I saw this news and posted it last night on the way to bed, and this morning it is still a real enigma to me. The actual voters out early are heavily democrat (+16%), but the exit poll shows McCain +4%. Yet every national poll that has democrats weighted by, say +12%, has Obama up by about the same amount. The latest Pew poll is a great example of this, as are the Morning Call polls in PA. They would indicate this kind of Democrat turnout should be showing huge two digit lead for Obama.

I would chalk this up to bad exit polling if not for a similar pattern showing up in Nevada (H/T Reader Ordi):

With the election still a week away, nearly a quarter of the Nevada electorate has already cast ballots, according to the secretary of state.

Through the end of voting Sunday, about 300,000 people had voted early statewide, a turnout of 24.9 percent of the state’s 1.2 million active voters. 

…

Through Sunday, 55 percent of early voters were Democrats, 29 percent Republicans.

…

Exit polling of early voters conducted by a local political consultant suggests a close presidential contest in the Silver State: Democratic nominee Barack Obama had the votes of 50 percent who had voted, while Republican nominee John McCain had 48 percent of the early vote.

Emphasis mine.  Woah – stop the presses here! Again we see Democrats coming out in huge numbers with another +16% edge, yet the race is Nevada is a statistical tie? What is up with this? And note this is with 25% of the voters having voted – which could indicate this would be a pretty solid trend. There is other data that supports the NV results (and the polling methodology seems damn strong with over 7,000 respondents), the early voting has seen key Obama groups lagging behind other demographics. By comparison RCP has Obama up 7.4% in NV.  What gives?

I have been saying the Democrat turnout may not be that big of an edge over the GOP this year, with the concern they Dems blew away the GOP in the primaries by a historic 2-1 edge. Now we see Democrats coming out massively again, but they are not voting for Obama. They can’t be. Either they are closet Republicans or something is seriously wrong with the polls and the democrat party.

Look, the tilted ‘extended’ national polls with a huge Dem edge and Obama lead cannot be right and then these early voting data ALSO be right. It is just not possible.

My current thinking is that the only folks talking to pollsters are the Obama fans, while the rest of the country is fed up with polls and everything else that has to do with the Political Industrial Complex (PIC) – from the biased media, elitist talking heads, invisible power brokers and cronies getting rich to the actual politicians. I have been wondering if the echo chamber of the PIC had become so complete and disconnected from the nation that there was a surprise wave about to hit them all square in the face.

I am not sure, but clearly one poll or the other is wrong. I should note in the original story there was another poll out more in line with the national polls (big Obama lead).  But with this same pattern in NV, I just don’t know, except the polls may be total garbage if the American Voter is boycotting them and about ready to bypass them and send a message to the PIC directly from the voting booth.

Tags: 2008 Election, Early Polling, Florida, Polls