It really is stunning. I am talking about how many Floridians have already voted.
Just a few days into in person early voting and records continue to be broken.
Now, it’s still too early to know if all this early voting benefits Republicans or Democrats. Besides, it is 2020 after all. The usual rules just don’t apply this year.
According to Florida Democratic strategist Steve Schale, “The biggest thing about 2020 is there’s no model for it.”
Schale tells the Miami Herald, “There’s no history we can look back at.” He also says it’s beginning to look like the number of ballots cast this fall will approach 11 million in Florida. That’s far more than the 9.4 million in 2016.
Records are being broken in Hillsborough County. Supervisor of Elections, Craig Latimer tweeted “The county has already received more vote by mail ballots than were cast in the 2016 Presidential election.
Florida is so important this year; it always is. At the moment, the polls show it’s a dead heat between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
The New York Times is following Florida voting closely. In talking to Dr. Michael P. McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida, the Times has some interesting numbers:
- 3,033,702 Floridians have already voted.
- Turnout is already 31.7 percent of what it was in the entire 2016 election.
- 366,436 people had voted in person, including 154,004 Democrats and 153,743 Republicans.
- 2,667,266 people had voted by mail, including 1,293,994 Democrats and 812,363 Republicans.
- Democrats have requested 802,576 more mail-in ballots than Republicans.
So, here we are. Just a few days into early voting. We have been told this is the most important election of our time. It looks like voters are taking it seriously.