It’s Election Day. Floridians, up to and including President Trump, took advantage of the ability to vote by mail and early voting in record numbers. First, let’s look at the record vote-by-mail and early voting totals. Nearly 9 million votes have been cast and Democrats have outvoted Republicans by 108,123 total ballots. After Republicans outvoted Democrats for 12 consecutive days, Democrats finished strong by outvoting Republicans on Sunday with 63.8% of all registered voters having already voted.
There’s one certainty. Most voters have already voted. It’s also a near certainty that turnout will exceed 2016’s when 75% of registered voters turned out to vote. It’s important to note that while we don’t know how Floridians have voted, only who by way of party registration has, there’s something for both parties here. Democrats “stopped the bleeding” with a strong Sunday showing, not only hanging onto a ballot advantage but actually entering Election Day with an advantage that’s 11,683 votes larger than four years ago. That takes us to what Republicans can feel good about. While they may have a bigger partisan deficit than four years ago, President Trump won Florida by 112,911 votes. In other words, and for the ease of conversation, if history were to repeat itself with Election Day turnout, Trump would still have the potential to win with greater than 100,000 votes. Republicans have traditionally turned out in far greater numbers on Election Day than Democrats. There’s no indication that’ll change this year.
Partisans were far more likely to vote by mail or early vote. NPA and minor party candidates have under-voted their percentage of voter registration by about 5% thus far. Will there be a surge of NPA’s today? Will they be less likely to vote generally? How will most NPA’s break? The answers to these questions will be pivotal to the outcome. What we do know is that in 2016 turnout was 75%. Florida’s record was 83% in 1992.
Now, let's talk about Florida’s 26th and 27th Congressional districts. As of now, they remain tossups. As for the Amendments, numbers 1, 5, and 6 appear likely to pass. Amendments 2 and 3 are tossups and amendment 4 appears likely to fail. There’s no good data to make any determination about tight state House or Senate races.
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