I have good news and bad news.

Registered Democrats in Iowa have requested more absentee ballots than Republicans, and a higher percentage of Democrats have returned those ballots to county auditors.

On the other hand, a daily review of data released by the Iowa Secretary of State’s offices shows Democrats are not building the absentee ballot lead they enjoyed in 2012, when strong early GOTV delivered this state for President Barack Obama. Furthermore, Iowa Democrats are lagging further behind their 2012 numbers than are Republicans.

Hillary Clinton is poised to win the presidency and could carry Iowa, but Democrats have reason to worry about the cushion she will take into election day.

At the end of this post, I enclose tables showing Iowa absentee ballot totals statewide and in each Congressional district as of October 18 and at the same point in the last presidential campaign. I used October 16, 2012 for comparison because that date represents the same number of days before the November 6 general election.

Key points:

• As of October 18, Iowa Democrats had requested 28,944 more absentee ballots than Republicans. As of October 16, 2012, the Democratic lead was 74,130.

• As of October 18, county auditors had received 38,069 more absentee ballots from Democrats than from Republicans. As of October 16, 2012, the Democratic lead was 54,081.

• At this writing, Iowa Republicans have requested as many absentee ballots this year as they had at the same point in 2012, while Democrats are at only 80 percent of their 2012 ballot request number. That’s an improvement on where the party stood on September 30, and considerably better than the numbers looked on September 20, when Democrats had requested less than half as many ballots as four years earlier. But it doesn’t bode well for Democratic chances of building a much larger early vote lead by election day.

• Absentee ballot requests from no-party voters in Iowa are only at 77 percent of the number at this point in 2012. In absolute terms, no-party voters have requested 24,040 fewer ballots this year. That’s bad news for Democrats, who did a much better job identifying supporters aligned with neither party four years ago. The president couldn’t have carried the early vote in Iowa by 137,355 without winning a majority of the 181,260 no-party voters who cast absentee ballots that year, because going into election day, registered Democrats had banked just 68,359 more votes than Republicans.

Democrats can draw comfort from a few trends.

• So far this year, Democrats have a better absentee ballot return rate in Iowa (59 percent) than Republicans do (44 percent).

Democrats deliberately started this year’s early voting drive later, supposedly a strategic choice aimed at leaving fewer ballots on the table. Going into election day 2012, Democrats had about 25,000 unreturned absentee ballots, compared to just 10,000 outstanding for Republicans.

“Ballot chase” close to election day is very labor-intensive–one reason I recommend voting early in person rather than through the mail. Keeping that return rate high over the next couple of weeks will be important to free up resources for targeting less reliable voters closer to election day.

• Not every Iowan will vote a straight ticket. A few weeks ago I collected an absentee ballot request form from a suburban Republican woman who wasn’t planning to vote for Donald Trump, and that was before the GOP nominee’s downward spiral following the release of a damaging 2005 videotape. Trump’s favorability rating among Republicans nationally has dropped considerably since the first presidential debate on September 26. Multiple polls have shown Trump underwater with college-educated women since the “grab them by the pussy” conversation went public.

We haven’t seen many Iowa polls this month, but if Clinton can consolidate more Democratic support than Trump has among Republicans, her early vote lead may end up larger than the gap in absentee ballot requests would indicate.

• Iowa Democrats believe their mailings and canvassing efforts have produced a majority of the absentee ballot requests from no-party voters. When the election results are certified next month, we’ll find out whether that’s accurate or wishful thinking.

Any comments about the presidential election are welcome in this thread. I’m continuing to update absentee ballot numbers every weekday here. Early vote tables from 2012 are archived here at Bleeding Heartland and on the Secretary of State’s website, which presents the data in a different format.

UPDATE: Added below the absentee ballot numbers for October 19, 2016, and October 17, 2012. Democrats have requested 29,761 more absentee ballots than Republicans have. County auditors have received 38,278 more ballots from Democrats than from Republicans. The Democratic return rate is now 61 percent, while the Republican return rate is 47 percent.

SECOND UPDATE: As of October 20, the Democratic lead in absentee ballot requests grew to 31,895 and the lead in ballots received by auditors ticked up slightly to 38,955. The Democratic return rate ticked up to 63 percent, and the Republican return rate rose to 50 percent.

At the equivalent point in the last presidential campaign (October 18, 2012), Democrats led Republicans in ballot requests by more than 70,000 and in ballots received by more than 55,000. The return rate at that time was about 67 percent for Democrats and just under 63 percent for Republicans.

OCTOBER 21 UPDATE: Democrats expanded their early vote lead again, to 34,812 in absentee ballot requests and 39,583 in ballots received by county auditors.

Pat Rynard broke down the early voting numbers by county at Iowa Starting Line. It’s well worth a look to see which counties are performing well for Democrats and Republicans. Regarding the statewide numbers, Rynard commented,

Democrats still lag their 2012 numbers, but they’ve made up significant ground from their poor early data in September that worried activists. It has always been unlikely that Democrats will get the same number of early votes as they did when Barack Obama was on the ticket. They don’t need to either, considering Obama won Iowa by six points in 2012. They just have to get close. And 84% is getting pretty close. If they bump that up to around 90%, Hillary Clinton will be well within striking range of carrying Iowa.

Also interesting is how Democrats have slowly but steadily increased their percent over 2012 day by day. Republicans’ numbers have jumped around, largely due to the bulk of their absentee efforts coming from mailers. While Republicans get a big boost every time an absentee mailer drops, Democrats have built their numbers through a huge field team and in-person early voting sites that slowly accumulate every day. Republicans and their field team and volunteers are still doing a great job in bringing in numbers better than their 2012 results, especially in a year where voter frustration is high. And they’re closing the gap between them and Democrats. […]

Because of both parties’ decisions to start their absentee efforts later, both lag their 2012 return rates. Democrats are likely better because they’re pushing lots of in-person voting (which has a return rate of 100%!). Republicans have 74,387 ballots still out in the field, while Democrats have 67,327 unreturned. Both sides have a lot of work to do in the final weeks.

Absentee ballots requested by Iowa voters as of October 18, 2016
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	44,125	30,522	22,595	274	97,516
IA-02	46,297	30,987	20,728	255	98,267
IA-03	44,035	36,264	17,441	253	97,993
IA-04	31,489	39,229	18,294	217	89,229
statewide	165,946	137,002	79,058	999	383,005

Absentee ballots received by Iowa county auditors as of October 18, 2016
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	25,833	13,380	10,272	120	49,605
IA-02	28,454	13,977	9,902	122	52,455
IA-03	25,904	16,463	7,723	119	50,209
IA-04	18,237	16,539	8,523	116	43,415
statewide	98,428	60,359	36,420	477	195,684

Absentee ballots requested by Iowa voters as of October 16, 2012
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	56,208	30,728	30,234	110	117,280
IA-02	57,960	31,354	28,187	123	117,624
IA-03	53,778	37,293	23,118	121	114,310
IA-04	39,130	37,708	21,559	94	98,491
statewide	207,076	137,083	103,098	448	447,705

Absentee ballots received by Iowa county auditors as of October 16, 2012
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	36,520	18,121	15,700	56	70,397
IA-02	37,982	18,293	14,578	76	70,929
IA-03	33,166	20,896	11,072	52	65,186
IA-04	25,278	21,555	11,198	54	58,085
statewide	132,946	78,865	52,548	238	264,597

Absentee ballots requested by Iowa voters as of October 19, 2016
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	45,881	32,006	23,810	294	101,991
IA-02	48,572	32,498	22,077	272	103,419
IA-03	46,701	38,618	18,725	278	104,322
IA-04	33,102	41,373	19,506	234	94,215
statewide	174,256	144,495	84,118	1,078	403,947

Absentee ballots received by Iowa county auditors as of October 19, 2016
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	27,896	15,071	11,413	138	54,518
IA-02	31,082	16,407	11,270	137	58,896
IA-03	27,793	17,889	8,452	129	54,263
IA-04	19,735	18,861	9,484	134	48,214
statewide	106,506	68,228	40,619	538	215,891

Absentee ballots requested by Iowa voters as of October 17, 2012
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	57,423	31,715	31,380	121	120,639
IA-02	59,506	32,569	29,488	132	121,695
IA-03	55,370	38,847	24,151	125	118,493
IA-04	40,364	39,239	22,682	107	102,392
statewide	212,663	142,370	107,701	485	463,219

Absentee ballots received by Iowa county auditors as of October 17, 2012
Congressional district	Democrats	Republicans	no-party voters	other	total
IA-01	38,230	19,406	16,903	69	74,608
IA-02	40,388	20,334	16,175	84	76,981
IA-03	35,374	23,192	12,193	57	70,816
IA-04	26,639	23,317	12,143	65	62,164
statewide	140,631	86,249	57,414	275	284,569