Election in Progress: Statewide and By Congressional District

The races that have attacted the most interest nationally have been Colorado’s statewide candidate and ballot issue races, and those in its Congressional districts.

The latest available reports on early voting and absentee ballots returned by party affiliation, provides some insight into how get out the vote efforts are going in those races.

Statewide, as of the close of business yesterday, 317,716 people had voted either early or by turning in absentee ballots (another 382,858 absentee ballots have been requested but not yet returned as of yesterday).  By party affilation, the breakdown was:

Democrat: 115,627
Republican: 138,204
Other: 63,885By Congressional District, the numbers are:

1st CD
Democrat: 23,887
Republican: 11,086
Other: 9,141

2nd CD
Democrat: 16,272
Republican: 13,962
Other: 8,777

3rd CD
Democrat: 6,452
Republican: 9,038
Other: 4,069

4th CD
Democrat: 16,049
Republican: 24,821
Other: 11,998

5th CD
Democrat: 10,681
Republican: 24,780
Other:  7,894

6th CD
Democrat: 18,185
Republican: 31,586
Other: 10,843

7th CD
Democrat: 24,101
Republican: 22,931
Other: 11,163

To be clear, these numbers are of party affiliation of voters who have voted, not election results, which are kept secret until the polls are closed at 7 p.m. on November 7, 2006.

Conventional wisdom holds that Republicans are more likely to vote early or absentee than Democrats.