Mrs. CampaignSpot got to the polls at 7 a.m. here in Yuppie Acres in Northern Virginia. She found that the wait an hour. She decided not to wait and returned, got dressed for work, and returned to the polling place to find a two-hour wait.
(Yuppie Acres is a mix of socially-acceptable, progressive, oh-so-sophisticated and vocal Obama supporters who generally work in D.C. and quiet, keep-it-to-themselves potential McCain supporters who work in defense and national-security related fields. The line had several folks with Obama buttons (hey! Virginia says no campaigning or electioneering in the polling place!) but no one who looked like an obvious first-time voter. This is not a neighborhood chock full of 18 to 25-year-olds.)
Readers report similar extremely high turnout. But from covering now more than a few elections, we know there are at least three waves throughout the day — the pre-work morning crowd, the midday lunch crowd, and the post-work afternoon and evening crowd. With the press showing images of long lines just for absentee and early voting across the country in the past weeks, I wonder how many Americans decided to go early, just to be sure.
A reader in Williamsburg, Virginia:
Virginia turnout will run around 77. My prediction. Maybe as high as 80.
And republican voters are showing up! Dems are also, but it will be interesting to see what the final margin is.
I’m guessing turnout will be 1 percent R over D.
A reader in Birmingham, Alabama:
I’m in a state, Alabama, that McCain will win by 20 or so, but in my hugely Republican area, the polls are packed. We don’t live in a swing state, but we will make our feelings known. Low Conservative morale? Not in Bama baby! God, I love this country.
From a reader in Illinois:
I vote in a small, rural, conservative, Republican town in Illinois. There is nothing major for either state or local on the ballot. I waited 20 minutes to vote at 6:30 a.m. and the elderly poll workers said they had never seen an election like this before, even when there was a major local issue on the ballot.
I take some hope from this – I think all those people were there, just as my wife and I were there, to vote against Obama when it won’t make a difference at all, since he’ll easily carry Illinois based on Chicago. As my wife noted, the folks in the Remington caps were unlikely to be Obama voters.
(Apparently this reader told Instapundit, too.) From north of Greensboro, North Carolina:
On my commute — I passed 2 polling places. At 10 til 7 both places were packed. One is a mid sized country church. It’s parking lot was full, and cars were overflowing onto the road (it’s a rural 2 lane road) — about 10 cars on each side of the road in each direction. The second is a large church whose parking lot was probably half to three quarters full.
Between the two, there were probably 200-250 cars.
Ten minutes before the polls opened.
And this is north of Greensboro, not really part of the city. The area lies between two “suburbs” one with a population of about 5,000 and the other 7,000.
And this area is predominantly white. I may go check the figures, but my guess would be >90% white.
It’s drizzling here, but not bad. Temperature is fine. If it rains harder that might have an effect, but if it did this all day, I don’t think many people would be dissuaded — you wouldn’t be cold and you just wouldn’t get that wet.
Again, reports of massive turnout aren’t all that surprising, considering the expectations and level of interest in the race. If voters in heavily-Republican areas are voting for McCain, then it would sugget that all that we heard about enthusiasm being higher among Obama supporters was moot – at some point, you reach the threshold of being willing to show up and vote and you do it.