The Emerson College runoff poll found that, as of July 12–13, 6% of its respondents—30 out of 500—said they had already voted. Drawing statistical conclusions from a subset of 30 respondents is a bad idea… but these are actual votes, so I’m going to do it anyway and note two crosstabs that blink happy for Larry Rhoden.
First, early voters are breaking even bigger for Rhoden than the total poll sample. 24 of the 30 early voters say they voted for Rhoden. That’s 80%, compared to 64% among the large majority who have yet to vote.
Second, look at the primary preferences of the early voters:
| Primary Choice | # | % |
| Rhoden | 13 | 42% |
| Johnson | 9 | 29% |
| Hansen | 7 | 23% |
| Doeden | 2 | 6% |
Toby Doeden won the primary with 31% of the vote; Rhoden came in second at 25%. Emerson College’s overall sample closely reflected those primary preferences; if early runoff voters matched those percentages, we’d expect maybe 10 to have shown up already for Doeden and maybe 8 to have cast their early votes for Rhoden. But among these actual early runoff voters, Rhoden’s primary backers have shown up in more than six times the number of Doeden’s. Even the backers of the two primary losers have already cast ballots in greater numbers than Doeden’s primary voters.
Early voters are enthusiastic voters. They want to make sure they don’t miss the chance to support their candidate. To the extent that the enthusiasm of 30 people makes a difference, this enthusiasm is coming almost entirely from people who voted for anyone but Doeden in the primary, and this enthusiasm is favoring Rhoden by a larger percentage than the support found among the broader population of likely runoff voters.
Early to bed, early to rise, early to vote, result in casting fat Doeden aside. Another four boring years of politics in South Dakota.