With early voting behind us and only tomorrow’s Primary Day ahead of us, a clear trend is in. Democrats dominated early. Not as in early voting – republicans actually led democrats with early in-person voting, but as in the total number of votes cast prior to Election Day. As of Sunday morning’s update, which didn’t reflect Sunday’s early voting totals, 69,849 more democrats had voted than republicans. Why is that notable, especially since republicans have typically had strong Election Day turnout? Because it’s the reverse of what took place four years ago and republicans now must have strong Election Day turnout to be competitive with democrats this primary cycle. To put this in perspective, in the August primaries four years ago – republicans led in turnout prior to Election Day by 36,557 voters. This means democrats have flipped the script by greater than 106,000 voters over where we were at the same time the last time. That’d be an impressive turnaround regardless of other considerations, but becomes that much more impressive when considered against the backdrop of just how much has changed with registered voters in Florida. Florida’s democrats led republicans in voter registration by over 257,000 voters back then. Florida’s republicans lead democrats by over 230,000 voters today. So, while Florida’s republicans have dominated Florida’s democrats in voter registration changes over the past four years, Florida’s democrats have dominated preelection day voting for Tuesday’s primaries. As I mentioned last week, the partisan primaries are one thing, but partisan turnout will no doubt factor in heavily in competitive non-partisan races – especially for school board seats. If democrats win in turnout, it probably means the status the quo will win for school board races. Democrats have had the advantage of a high-profile primary for governor that republicans haven’t had. That might be behind the under-performance of republicans thus far. That means republicans must dominate Tuesday’s turnout to flip this script not just on the turnout deficit but also school boards across the state. Democrats dominated early; will the record number of Florida republicans show up to dominate late?
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