Issue #206: How Weekend Early Voting went in Florida

Quick notes

Saturday morning, I published a data report on early voting in Florida and looked ahead to what Democrats hoped would occur over the weekend. I highly recommend giving this a look if you haven’t.

Issue #205: Florida Democrats Hope for a blue-tinted weekend early vote

Democrats went into the weekend after 5 days of solid 2-1 Republican leads in the in-person early voting. This had wiped away the Democratic lead in votes cast via mail. Historically the weekends of early voting have been more diverse and bluer. Democrats hoped for as much of a swing as they could get.

How Early Voting Went

In the end, the weekend was bluer, especially Sunday. However, it was still a fairly red vote overall.

This is a mixed bag for Democrats. The GOP +26 on Friday compared to GOP +15 on Sunday is a big shift, but still saw Republicans net 10s of thousands of additional voters. Of course had the weekend been as red as the weekday, it would have been a disaster.

At a county level, the weekend was bluer across almost all of the state. A few of the rural counties saw their weekends more Republican than the weekday. Otherwise almost all counties were much bluer over the last two days. The lone major county exception being Miami-Dade.

Miami-Dade managed to get 2% redder over the weekend. There were some major pushes to get Republican Hispanic voters out over the weekend, and that I believe played out. That said I’m going to do some more digging on Hispanic voters and Miami-Dade in the coming days. So keep an eye out for that.

The good news for Democrats were massive blue swings in Palm Beach: good for holding HD89, flipping HD91, and holding CD23.

The massive Democratic gains in Leon county was what I predicted in my last issue - reflecting increasing Black and student voting in Tallahassee. Sunday’s Black share of the electorate was up, reflecting the common practice of Black voters to vote after church. Several “Souls to the Polls” events are scheduled for next Sunday, and a few happened yesterday as well. Black turnout increasing was especially strong in the Leon, Gadsden, Jefferson, and Madison areas of the panhandle - which will be critical for Democratic prospects at flipping the 3rd State Senate District back into Democratic hands.

I’ll be going a whole piece on Senate 3 over the weekend, so keep an eye out for that. This is a mult-million dollar race - the lone Democratic State Senate pickup opportunity this year in Florida.

Current State of Play

With the weekend over, this is the current vote breakdown by early and mail. Republicans maintain a 10 point lead in vote cast statewide.

The raw numbers are below.

The large raw vote margin hides the fact that turnout right now remains modestly close. The Republicans have a 4 point turnout advantage, which is not bad historically for Florida. However, the problem for Democrats is that the GOP has such a solid registration advantage. Even if turnout % were even, the GOP would have a solid lead in votes cast.

Turnout by county can be seen below. Democrats still hold a turnout advantage in a few counties, though the GOP is maintaining modest leads in most areas. Solid Republican leads in the rural counties is one thing - but again Miami-Dade is a major issue here.

In terms of votes that could still be cast, the Republicans have far more SUPER SUPER voters left to cast ballots (the 3 of 3s you see in the bottom right). Democrats, however, have more less-reliable voters who could show up. For team blue, getting as many of those out as they can is imperative.

We have one week to go. I’ll be working on some different breakdowns for major contested legislative races and local contests. Democratic chances to flip Florida are and remain low, but the prospects in different regional and local contests still is good.

Also keep an eye out tomorrow for a massive deep dive that I wrote about Florida’s 2020 issues and how the state fell off the swing state board. Its like 7,000 words and a trillion maps and graphs - covering pre-2020 and the 2020 race itself. Keep an eye out for that in the morning.