Early Voting Isn't Looking Good For Trump

As Donald Trump continues to fall in the polls, voters are turning out across the United States to cast their votes early in what is shaping up to be the most volatile election in recent history. But it's not just anyone turning out early: Democratic women voters in key battleground states are stepping up in early voting, casting votes in disproportionate numbers when compared to both Republican women and male voters. And that should make Trump worry.

Trump may claim that "nobody respects women more" than he does, but it looks like most women aren't buying the candidate's brand of casual misogyny. Nearly 90,000 Democratic women in North Carolina have returned their early-voting ballots, while just 60,000 Republican women have cast their votes early, according to Politico. Meanwhile, Democratic and Republican men in North Carolina have been voting early at the same rate. North Carolina just opened early voting last week, which makes the uptick in Democratic women turnout astonishing, and very telling for Trump.

This surge of Democratic women participating in early voting immediately follows Trump's comments about kissing, groping, and grabbing women by their genitals; objectifying and degrading women who have accused the businessman of sexual harassment and assault; and calling Hillary Clinton "such a nasty woman" during the third presidential debate. The latter comment sparked a tremendous response on social media, with women reclaiming the word "nasty" and tweeting, "I'm With Nasty."

But it looks like it's not only Democratic women who are turning in their ballots early. An Oct. 21 poll found that Clinton is leading Trump 52 percent to 47 percent in early voting, with Clinton winning women in the state overall. According to CNN, early voting in Georgia is already up by 25 percent, but Clinton would need a large number of non-white votes to win the state.

Daniel Smith of the University of Florida told Politico that in Florida, roughly 55 percent of the 880,000 people who voted by the end of the day on Oct. 19 were women. Like Georgia and North Carolina, Florida is another battleground state where Clinton is ramping up her campaign. It may be working, considering just as many Democratic voters as Republican voters in the state have requested ballots.

Trump has white, male voters locked up, making women and non-white Americans the deciders of this election. As Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight pointed out earlier in October, the gender gap this election is significant, with Clinton leading Trump by 15 percentage points among women. If only women voted in 2016, and men sat this one out, Clinton would easily win the electoral college.

The above map may still look like a pipe dream, but these early-voting numbers rushing in provide a bit of hope that women, not Trump, will make America great again.