We’re more than halfway through with early voting for Florida’s midterm elections. I wanted to begin by setting the stage for the final home stretch to Election Day. Each weekday, I’ll be providing an early voting update and comparing turnout to the previous midterm cycle in 2014. There are 28 early voting locations in Miami-Dade, 22 locations in Broward and 14 locations in Palm Beach County.
First here’s where we stand with votes received by mail and early voting totals through Sunday. Democrats: 1,092,547 at 40%, Republicans: 1,151,593 at 42% and Indy/3rd party: 482,252 at 18%. That's a total of 2,726,392 votes. We have just a week to go until Election Day, the GOP’s advantage in turnout has been cut to just two percent. 59,046 more votes have been cast by Republicans than Democrats in Florida.
Traditionally Republicans turn in more votes by mail, more Democrats early vote and more Republicans turnout on Election Day. A surge of Sunday voting by Democrats led to Democrats taking a 6,000 early vote lead for the first time since early voting started.
That being said, it’s clear that unless the solid majority of independents and third-party folks are backing Democrats, there's no blue wave in Florida. Not knowing what these votes look like makes it irresponsible to draw conclusions beyond this point but needless to say, it's generally better news than not for Republicans in Florida thus far.
If you’re attempting to gauge turnout, here’s what you should look for in Florida. These were the total early voting totals (vote by mail and early voting) breakouts from 2014 heading into Election Day.
- Democrats: 40%
- Republicans: 42%
- Indy/3rd party: 18%
Republicans held a 2% overall voter advantage in 2014 heading into Election Day in a cycle that was favorable for them generally across our state. As of today, we’re seeing similar splits by voters.
Until tomorrow’s update.
Photo by: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images