Early voters go for Obama

Abby Ohlheiser has a Slate article about voting trends:

Obama's doing well with early voters, at least according to one poll that puts him at 59 percent against Romney's 31 percent among those who have already voted.
That poll, from Reuters/Ipsos, has a pretty big "credibility interval" of ten percentage points for early voters, though Obama still leads above that margin.
So why the focus on early voting? First, because early voting turnout has been high this election, including in battleground states, at least partially because both campaigns are encouraging supporters to take advantage of early voting opportunities. And second, early voters heavily favored Obama and Democrats in 2008, as Slate explained earlier this month. High early voter turnout is expected to help Team Obama, and, if the Reuters poll is to be believed, for good reason.
But, as Reuters notes, the GOP is trying to claim some of that momentum for its own, despite the numbers heavily leaning in Obama's favor:
The Romney campaign says it is leading or even with Obama among early voters in several closely fought battleground states, including Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, and New Hampshire. The campaign says it has seen a spike in volunteering and voter enthusiasm among Republicans since Romney's strong debate performance against Obama.
According to the Reuters poll, about sevent percent of those surveyed have already voted, out of a sample of 6,704 respondents. At least forty states have already opened up the voting process with the election weeks away.

Rico says the second debate should only improve on these numbers...