Jason Tolbert crunches the early voting and concludes from the congressional district distribution of the Republican voting that John Boozman may not win without a runoff in the Republican primary race for U.S. Senate. Sen. Gilbert Baker would be the other candidate presumed standing — if you rule out a stealth surge for Jim Holt. I wouldn’t hazard a guess.
Overall turnout and geography of heavy turnouts may be the story of this election. Early voting has produced about 8,000 votes per day so far. At that rate, total early voting might hit 90,000. If it’s about a quarter of total voting, that means maybe 360,000 to 400,000 votes will be cast overall, with about a quarter of them Republican. Locations matter. For example, through Wednesday, 600 more Republicans had voted cumulatively in Pulaski, Saline and Garland counties than in Washington and Benton counties.