Caracas Chronicles

Quico says: Working off of CNE’s first bulletin, it looks like chavismo just took more votes nationwide than we did yesterday:

I’ve corrected this chart to include Central Caracas only (rather than Metropolitan Caracas) in order to avoid double-counting voters in Chacao, Baruta, Petare and El Hatillo. That change adds 1.1% to PSUV’s nationwide total.

State by state, it becomes clear that the huge margins PSUV ran up on us in rural states overwhelmed our advantage in urban states:

Click to enlarge – all non-PSUV votes added for readability.

The state-by-state tally:

Especially noteworthy here is Henry Falcon’s Lukashenkoesque margin of victory in Lara. In fact, a quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that PSUV’s entire nationwide lead rests on Lara. If you reattribute Falcón’s votes to the “dissident” column (where they belong!) PSUV’s national share drops to 49.2%!

Obviously, that’s a pretty rough way of figuring it. Of course PSUV would’ve gotten some votes even if Falcón had run as a dissident. But still, a massive portion of the chavistas’ lead comes down to the popularity of a single guaro who doesn’t really get along with the leadership in Caracas.