Florida vote by mail update & early voting primer for October 19th
Bottom Line: Today marks the first day of early voting in Florida. Today through Sunday November 1st, Floridians will be able to cast in-person votes at sites across the state. In recent election cycles more Floridians had voted early than on Election Day or by mail. It remains to be seen if that will be the case after record requests with votes by mail. Speaking of which here’s where we stand with all votes by mail received as of Sunday.
- Nearly 2.5 million Floridians have already voted by mail
- Democrats have outvoted Republicans by 468,098 votes
Democrats have successfully executed a strong vote by mail campaign. They’ve outvoted Republicans on a relative and absolute basis as of now. Here’s the party breakout of votes received in Florida:
- Democrats: 49%
- Republicans: 30%
- NPA’s & Others: 21%
That’s a 19% lead in turnout. In 2016 Republicans slightly out-voted Democrats in votes by mail, while Democrats held an advantage in Early voting. The question remains this...are Democrats borrowing would be votes at the polls in their early voting counts or will they have successfully expanded their voting base and increased turnout by mail? We’ll have a much clearer picture as early voting kick off today. For now, it’s clear Florida’s Republicans will have to flip the script on early voting, much the way Democrats have on votes by mail, if they’re to match the success they had statewide four years ago. To be continued...