Blue wave? Florida’s early voting results surprise
Bottom Line: Early voting has traditionally been a strength for Democrats in Florida. This is a bit of an oversimplification but generally Republicans have turned in more votes by mail, Democrats have led in early turnout in person and Republicans have led turnout on Election Day. Early voting is always closely watched to gauge enthusiasm and turnout. The speculation by many was that with a possible “wave” election cycle for Democrats, they’d be eager to show up to vote given the opportunity. Start to finish in early voting across our state there was a much different outcome.
Here’s who’s already cast votes for the primaries.
- Republicans: 853,706 (46%)
- Democrats: 809,309 (44%)
- No party: 189,077 (10%)
- 3rd Party: 5,716 (.03%)
Democrats had a Sunday surge on the last day of voting to take the overall lead for in person early voting but all in Republicans have cast 44,000+ more votes prior to Primary Day. There are more Democrats registered in Florida than Republicans. Republicans make up just 35% of the state's voter registration with Democrats at 37%. Republicans are outperforming registration by 11% compared to 9% for Democrats, for net outperformance of 4% statewide for the primaries. Republicans held an advantage in voting in ballots received through the mail with Democrats taking an edge in person on the final early voting day on Sunday. Nearly two million Floridians have already voted prior to Primary Day.
All of the early voting info would seem to indicate that in Florida there's plenty of enthusiasm on the right with no indication of a blue wave in our state as of now. With wide open primaries for Governor on both sides of the isle at the top of the ticket, this primary cycle is a fair assessment of overall partisan enthusiasm. So far so good for Republicans. We’ll see if that continues on Election Day.