Reuters is out this afternoon with a piece headlined "Democrats off to a good start in early voting". This headline is just plain wrong. The main point of the article is that in a number of states, more registered Democrats have voted early than have registered Republicans. Reuters cites both Iowa and Louisiana as two such states. Of course, a few paragraphs later, Reuters sneaks in the truth and says that Republicans have "sharply improved" their performance from 2008 in those states. Another state with many early voting registered Democrats is West Virginia. In that state, Republicans are 6% more of the early voting electorate than in 2008, but more Democrats have voted. Reuters ignores the fact that in West Virginia, the old Southern pattern of voters being local Democrats and national Republicans still exists. Many folks are still registered Democrat even though they vote Republican regularly.
Another state that Reuters discusses is Nevada. In that state, Republicans are running about 15% better as a share of the early voting electorate than they did in 2008. While the figures are mentioned at the end of the article, the reporters somehow fail to point out that despite a Democratic registration edge, more Republicans than Democrats have voted so far across the state.
Wouldn't it be nice if news were actually factual rather than slanted to the advantage of the Democrats.
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