The AP estimates that as of Saturday, about 27 million votes had been cast.

Indeed, Election Day is becoming a misnomer. About 27 million absentee and early votes were cast in 30 states as of Saturday night, more than ever. Democrats outnumbered Republicans in pre-Election Day voting in key states.

That has Democrats -- and even some Republicans -- privately questioning whether McCain can overtake Obama, even if GOP loyalists turn out in droves on Tuesday. Obama may already have too big of a head start in critical states like Nevada and Iowa, which Bush won four years ago.

Public Policy Polling has some interesting numbers from their state polling on how each candidate is doing among those who've already voted and who intends to vote tomorrow. Barack has some pretty dramatic leads among those who've voted already. The question is, will John McCain be able to catch up?

Nevada:

Obama 51
McCain 47

71% of the state's likely voters say they have already cast their ballots and with those folks Obama has a much broader 57-43 lead. McCain's bringing the race to within four points is predicated on winning election day voters by a margin of 57-38.

Indiana:

Obama 49
McCain 48

A little under a quarter of likely voters have already cast their ballots and with those folks Obama has a 64-35 lead. John McCain is up 52-44 with those planning to vote on election day.

Georgia:

Obama 48
McCain 50

Barack Obama still has a decent chance of pulling off the upset in Georgia. He's leading 52-47 among voters who have already cast their ballots, which accounts for 57% of those surveyed. John McCain is up 54-43 with those planning to vote tomorrow.

The demographics of early voters and of those who are election day voters are quite different. 35% of early voters were black, 56% were women, and when it comes to party identification 46% describe themselves as Democrats while 40% are Republicans.

For likely voters who have not yet gone to the polls just 24% are black, 42% are Republicans compared to 38% who are Democrats, and a slight majority are men.

Florida:

Obama 50
McCain 48

Over half of those who plan to vote in Florida this fall already have, and among those voters Barack Obama has built up a a 56-43 lead. That leaves John McCain playing catch up if he hopes to take the state on election day- he has a 54-42 lead among those folks planning to vote Tuesday, but the big question is whether they will really turn out.

Montana:

Obama 48
McCain 47

Like in many states, the contest in Montana is going to come down to election day turnout. Among those who say they have already cast their ballots in the state, Barack Obama has built up a 61-35 lead. Among those planning to vote on Tuesday John McCain has a 53-40 advantage. The extent to which those folks follow through is likely to be the deciding factor in who takes the state.

North Carolina:

Obama 50
McCain 49

PPP projects that [Obama] racked up a lead of a little over 250,000 voters during early voting. He led 55-45 among those who said they had already voted in our poll, and a little over 2.5 million North Carolinians have already cast their ballots.

But among those planning to vote on election day John McCain leads 56-42. It is always better to have actual votes than hypothetical votes so there's no doubt Obama has the edge right now- the question is just whether enough of those McCain supporters really turn out to make up the gap.

Here is the demographic composition of folks planning to vote on election day itself:

-41% Democrats, 43% Republicans, 16% independents
-79% white, 17% black
-51% men, 49% women

Ohio:

Obama 50
McCain 48

[Obama's] He's banked a huge lead with early voters, who made up about 30% of the sample. He's up 65-34 with those folks. McCain's tightening the race to two points is predicated on his winning election day voters 54-44.

The trend appears to show McCain closing somewhat but the common thread is that Obama's organization and enthusiasm advantage have combined to give him dramatic early vote leads. Other fringe benefits of so many Obama voters having voted already include that those voters are free to volunteer to GOTV for Barack tomorrow instead, not to mention the fact that the lines will be shorter than they would have otherwise been, thus allowing more voters to vote. But there's something else at play here. Psychologically, if you're a McCain voter, the idea that you start out behind on election day I suspect can be somewhat daunting. Think about it -- you're already not so psyched about the guy and on top of that you have the distinct feeling that voting tomorrow is an exercise in futility. Anyway, that's one factor to look for tomorrow that will determine whether we are talking landslide or not...and that goes for up and down the ticket.

There's more...

The Obama Get Out The EARLY Vote turnout operation has been impressive and unprecedented. Campaign rallies with Barack, Joe and even the Clintons have been timed to coincide with the launch of early voting and speeches regularly feature pitches to get out and vote early. And as a result, we've all seen the long lines at early vote locations around the country as well as the record-setting early vote numbers (check out this site for the most updated info.) Less well-known is the effort to rally us to early vote here in California, which couldn't be further from a swing state yet where early voting at select locations has been open since Oct. 6.

First, on Oct. 5, I got an e-mail from the CA Obama campaign, which alerted me to the commencement of early voting and which sent me to the CA Secretary of State's website for further information.

A couple weeks later, I received my official Obama-Biden bumper sticker that I'd ordered in the mail. Contained within the letter that accompanied the sticker was the following admonition:

There are many ways to help our campaign, but the most important thing you can do is cast your vote for change. Here is the information you need to vote early in your state:

Registrar of Voters
12400 Imperial Hwy.
Norwalk, CA 90650

Then, last week, came an e-mail alerting me to an Obama campaign-organized early vote rally at the above address (which is in fact the only LA County early vote location) this past Saturday, whose purpose was both to urge supporters to come out and vote early AND to stay and make calls to other states urging THEM to vote early. Ingenious.

Seeing an opportunity, I printed out a bunch of the Courage Campaign's excellent progressive voter guides to hand out at the gathering of likeminded Obama supporters and headed down to Norwalk. As I mingled throughout the crowd, people were extremely grateful for the guides, which run through the various CA progressive organizations' positions on the 12 initiatives on the November ballot. Here in California, the ballot initiative process is very broken and the propositions are often quite confusing, even to the more informed voters. If you live in California, please download and print out a copy for yourself -- you may take it with you as you vote -- or if you don't, please send them to your friends and family who do live here. It's crucial that we defeat Props 8 & 4 in particular. The only way the right-wing can even hope to get their way on eliminating the right of gay couples to marry and endangering young women by imposing a parental notification law is to go around the legislative process and hope to buy their way into law. We have to make sure they don't succeed.

But I digress.

So, since I was down there already, I decided I should practice what I preach and vote myself. It was an impressive sight, I have to say. At 9am on a Saturday morning there was a line 40-50 people deep outside the registrar of voters, mostly made up of African-American and Latino voters (check out a volunteer's Flickr slideshow HERE.)

It took me at least a half hour before I was in the door and then another 20 to get my absentee ballot (early voting at this location is essentially requesting an absentee ballot, receiving it, filling it out and submitting it all in one sequence.) I then took my time filling it out soaking in the historic nature of what I was doing. I told myself to remember that moment and I believe that I always will.

It wasn't until later that I realized the larger strategy behind the Obama campaign's early vote strategy. Yesterday I received a call about volunteering on election day. "What about over the weekend," I asked. "Sure, we can always use you but we really need you on election day." Then I took another look at the e-mail announcing the early vote rally. There it was in black and white:

Don’t wait until November 4 – Vote Early so that you can help Get Out the Vote on Election Day!

You may have seen Obama's new "Talk To Your Boss" web video, which urges us to take the day off work or school to volunteer -- it's all part of the same campaign, to mobilize Obama supporters nationwide in an unprecedented mass election day get out the vote effort.

So, vote early, get the day off and volunteer for Obama on election day.

Not sure where to vote or if your state even has early voting? Check HERE. Not sure how to get hooked up with the campaign? Look up your state HERE.

There's more...

The 9th day of early voting is completed.  I should have pointed out yesterday that the voting stats come from the great NC Board of Elections site: http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/

There are now 1,192,156 votes in, which means nearly 140,000 additional votes were cast yesterday.  This leaves us on track to top 2,000,000 early votes this year.

Interestingly, the makeup of the voters I gave yesterday (55% D, 28% R, 17% U, 28% Black/African American, and 56% female) remains exactly the same.  I keep expecting this to close in, but it hasn't since about the third day.  It will be fascinating to see the mix a week from now.   Applying the same fairly conservative formula (85% D, 10% R, 50% U) Obama's banked lead has grown from 175 thousand to 193 thousand.

More after the jump ...

There's more...