The Hill News

Democrats on Wednesday dismissed the notion of an enthusiasm gap with Republicans, issuing a memo claiming that they have an edge in early voting over the GOP. 

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) issued a memo showing Democrats outpacing Republicans in early voting totals from races in 11 "key" states as the GOP is touting their own improvements in early and absentee voting.

{mosads}"It's very clear that the so-called energy gap is not there at all in the early days and in fact the ! Democrats are outperforming Republicans in the early voting," Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) said on MSNBC. 

President Obama and Democratic leaders have spent much time and energy over the past few weeks appealing their to base constituencies -- especially young, African American and Latino voters -- to get out and vote early in states that permit it.

Both parties have looked to early voting totals as an indicator of how they will fare on Election Day, thus Republicans and Democrats have wrangled over the past week over control the early voting narrative.

While Republicans highlights gains or leads key Senate, House and gubernatorial races in Colorado, North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, Democrats looked at early vote totals in California, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia in addition to North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada and Ohio -- states that Republicans also examined.

The memo sought to explain any discrepancy with Republican numbers, saying that "in key states, such as Nev., Iowa, Calif., Wisc., Wash., Ill. and W.Va., Democrats are outpacing Republicans in early vote. In other states, such as Colo., Democrats tend to cast votes later than Republicans (as they did in 2008), and we are confident that margin will close."

Democrats also claimed that by analzying the vote totals of groups such as those who ! voted in a previous midterm, presidential year only, or for the first time in 2008, they could show that Republicans have not made up ground in 2010.

"If Republicans were more enthusiastic in 2010, they would see significantly higher early vote across all levels of vote history than Democrats," the memo reads. "Most importantly, sporadic Republicans would consistently out-turnout Sporadic Democrats in early voting.   This hasn’t materialized in early vote."