We’re only eleven days away from Election Day. With early voting starting this week and record votes by mail, turnout in Florida is already at about 40% of the total turnout in 2016. With this weekly update on Florida’s election landscape, a few notable takeaways include: over 4.3 million total votes have been recorded. Democrats have outvoted Republicans by 553,687 votes by mail and Republicans have outvoted Democrats by 90,913 early votes. Also, the top issues according to Floridians are the economy, COVID-19, healthcare and race, in that order.
Democrats have clearly executed a successful vote by mail campaign as they’ve flipped the script from four years ago when Republicans edged out Democrats in votes by mail. Democrats led Republicans in early voting four years ago, and despite 11 counties yet to open for early voting in predominant Republican counties, Republicans have begun to put up a sizeable advantage in person. Democrats had cast 96,450 more votes than Republicans through early and mail-in voting heading into Election Day in 2016.
Highlights from races around the state this week include South Florida’s most hotly contested Congressional races are all tightening up based on an average of polling. In Florida’s 18th, Brian Mast is showing a 3-point lead over Pam Keith. In Florida’s 26th, the race appears to be about tied between Debbie Mucarsal-Powell and Carlos Gimenez. In Florida’s 27th, Donna Shalala is showing a 2-point advantage over Maria Elvira Salazar.
Joe Biden has averaged a 2% lead in Florida’s averaged polls this week. That compares to a 3.8% average lead Hillary Clinton had on the same date four years ago in the same polls. President Trump is pacing 2.8% better in Florida today than four years ago when he won the state by 1.2%.
Trends now matter more because of Floridians officially voting by the millions already.
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