I've taken a look at the gender breakdown in a couple of the early voting states and was 1) not surprised to see more women voting than men and 2) shocked to see by how much they are out-voting men.
It's in the hundreds of thousands of votes in states like North Carolina and Georgia. In Georgia, of the 1.6 million votes cast so far, approximately 58 percent of voters are women. In North Carolina the percentage of women is about 57. In both cases that works out to at least a quarter million more female voters than male.
Those of you tracking early voting in other states take a look at the gender breakdown (if it is available) and put it in comments. I also wonder just how unusual this is. I think women outnumbering men in voting is fairly normal but the gap is so wide this year I was quite surprised. Since Barack Obama is far ahead of John McCain among women in national polling this is obviously great news for John McCain Barack Obama.