If you've seen (and been discouraged by) the ABC News story that says Bush has been the choice of a majority of early voters (51%-47%), take heart in this assessment by Chris Bowers at MyDD:

Sound like good news for Bush, right? I have done some quick analysis of the states where early voting at polling places (not no fault absentee balloting) is taking place, plus Oregon where all voting is early via mail, and the opposite appears to be true. Twenty-five states fit this category: AL, AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, FL, GA, HI, IN, IA, KS, ME, NE, NV, NM, NC, ND, OR, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT and WV. According to Dave Leip, in 2000 Bush received 24,464,219 votes in these states, while Gore received 21,029,384. In other words, Bush won 54.0% of the two-party in these states, while Gore only won 46.0%. Thus, if the ABC poll is accurate, Bush is under-performing his 2000 levels by 2-3 points, while Kerry is over-performing Gore’s level by 1-2 points. This is actually horrendous news for Bush. If Kerry is losing in Republican areas by four points less than Gore was in 2000, then things look very good for Kerry indeed.

Feel better now?