New study shows GOP voters in Sun Belt states embraced absentee voting in 2020

This suggests “that making voting by mail more difficult could end up hurting Republicans more than they realize”:

An analysis of the 2020 electorate in three key Sun Belt states, North Carolina, Arizona and Florida by @AshleyKirzinger & @audrey__kearney suggests that making voting by mail more difficult could end up hurting Republicans more than they realize. https://t.co/olRk608Djt

— amy walter (@amyewalter) May 19, 2021

More from the study:

While Trump encouraged GOPers to vote in person (falsely claiming vote by mail was fraudulent) @KFF found that Republicans "actual voting method did not exactly match their self-reported plans on voting method back in September."https://t.co/olRk608Djt

— amy walter (@amyewalter) May 20, 2021

And:

While just 23% of Republicans in Florida, Arizona and North Carolina told KFF pollsters that they planned to vote by mail, almost two-thirds of them (62%), ultimately cast a ballot absentee. https://t.co/olRk608Djt

— amy walter (@amyewalter) May 20, 2021

The study also found a large number of Hispanic voters sat out 2016 but voted in 2020:

What we know about: Hispanic voters

Over one-third of Hispanic voters who were eligible in 2016, but chose not to vote, chose to vote in 2020 (an additional 12% of Hispanic voters were newly eligible for this historic election). pic.twitter.com/jZnMHB5Rtb

— Ashley Kirzinger (@AshleyKirzinger) May 19, 2021

But unlike in 2016, late deciders did not break for Trump :

What we know about: late deciders

In 2016 there was some evidence that many late deciding voters went disproportionately for President Trump in key battleground states. This does not seem to be the case in 2020. pic.twitter.com/wFt9adMr7d

— Ashley Kirzinger (@AshleyKirzinger) May 19, 2021

But they’re still searching for how pollsters got 2020 so, so wrong:

What we don't know: still so much

But we are working hard to understand how polling’s failure to include or appropriately weight for a certain group of voters produced error that could explain a large portion of the polling error during the 2020 election.

— Ashley Kirzinger (@AshleyKirzinger) May 19, 2021

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