The signs in battleground Wisconsin increasingly point to a new and volatile election scenario: a big Democratic-leaning bloc of voters casting absentee ballots — and a big Republican-leaning bloc voting at the polls on Election Day.
Consider this finding from a statewide survey released Tuesday by the Marquette Law School:
Among people planning to vote absentee by mail, Joe Biden leads the race for president by 67 points.
Among people planning to vote in person on Election Day, Donald Trump leads by 41 points.
While exceptionally stark, those numbers echo the evidence of other polls and Wisconsin’s recent elections in the 2020 pandemic: that one party’s voters (Democrats) are embracing voting by mail far more than the other party’s (Republicans).
Such a big partisan divide over voting method raises some stark possibilities in a state widely viewed as a possible tipping point in the race for president.