You know we’re getting down to crunch time with a Presidential election because the President of the United States was scheduled to be in Florida for the second time in as many weeks today, prior to the positive COVID-19 diagnosis. Joe Biden is scheduled to be back on Monday. That’s independent of the second Presidential debate which will be taking place in Miami in a couple of weeks.
As we get closer to election day, some key developments to consider include, Republicans narrowing Democrats lead in voter registration from 2.5% in 2016 to 1.3% today. Also, record numbers of vote-by-mail ballots, totaling more than 5 million, have been sent out to voters with Democrats outpacing Republican requests by approximately 800,000 ballots. Lastly, a total of 35,500 ballots cast by mail were rejected in the August primaries with Democrats having 5,600 more votes invalidated than Republicans. That translates into an estimated 15,000+ votes which would be invalidated in the general election.
Starting Monday, we’ll begin to receive additional information from the Florida Division of Elections on vote-by-mail ballots that have been received by the state. As a reminder, Monday is also the voter registration deadline in Florida for this cycle and early voting begins October 19th.
As for polling across our state, only one Presidential Florida poll was released this week which showed Biden up 4. This after Florida was polling as a tie a week ago. No new congressional polls were released this week which leaves Republicans showing leads in Florida’s 18th, 26th, and 27th.
While there wasn’t any new congressional polling, there was news in the 27th Congressional Race. For the second time this year, it’s been disclosed that Democrat incumbent Donna Shalala failed to report stock sales which is a violation of federal disclosure laws. While Shalala stated it was simple oversight the first time, rather than an effort to hide investment transactions which might reflect potential conflicts of interests, a second violation so quickly raises additional ethics questions which would likely be probed if Democrats weren’t in control of the House.
Trends now matter more because Floridians are now officially voting with vote-by-mail ballots being sent out by the millions. The next week will surely be festive.
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