North Carolina Early Voting

There is some interesting data coming back from North Carolina regarding early voting and absentee ballots. I'll spare you the math: 9% of registered voters have already voted and these are comprised of 56% Democrats, 27% Republicans and 17% other (the polls have been open since October 13). This implies a 29% edge for Obama among 9% of all registered voters and a greater percentage of likely voters, if we assume that party members vote for their candidate and the others split their votes down the middle. There is still a week of early voting remaining, which means we can expect something like 20% of NC to vote early when all is said and done. This means that by the time the polls open on November 4, McCain will have to beat Obama by 7-8 points among election day voters just to tie Obama. That is quite a hole to dig out of.