Florida GOP Braces as Early Vote Sags: A 2.8-Point Republican Lead Against an 11-Point Registration Edge
Republicans led Democrats by just 2.8 points in Florida's early vote as of Saturday afternoon - far thinner than the last two cycles - leaving the party's governor nominee, Byron Donalds, counting on an Election Day surge his party usually delivers.
Florida Republicans expected a comfortable fall. Instead, the early vote has left party veterans uneasy two days before Election Day, according to ENM News' November 1 analysis. As of Saturday afternoon, Republicans were ahead of Democrats by just 2.8 percentage points in early votes cast - a much thinner margin than in the last two general elections, and one that sits against an 11-point Republican advantage in voter registration. The concern centers on the governor's race, where Republican Byron Donalds holds a narrow polling lead over Democrat David Jolly despite a large financial edge: $176 million raised to Jolly's $28 million.
The softest Republican performance is in the Panhandle and rural North Florida, including many of the 17 counties Donalds lost in the Republican primary: there, Republican turnout is running 3.2 points below 2022 levels, according to University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald, while in counties Donalds carried the drop is a smaller 1.1 points. Democrats have already surpassed their entire 2022 early and mail vote total in 15 counties, while Republicans have done so in four. The age gap is sharper still: one quarter of active registered Democrats under 30 have already voted, compared with 9 percent of Republicans in that age group. And because about two-thirds of Florida voters usually cast ballots before Election Day, the early count largely sets the cushion each side carries into Tuesday.
The most striking number in the file is an estimate, and it is labeled as one: internal estimates from both parties, shared with Axios, put Donalds as many as 500,000 votes behind in the distribution of ballots cast before Election Day - a projection about votes already banked, not a counted result. Digging out would require winning Tuesday's vote by roughly two to one. The counterweights are real: Republicans outnumber Democrats by 1.5 million registered voters in Florida, and state GOP chair Evan Power said in the file, 'We always win Election Day, and we know how to do this.' Whether Tuesday produces the usual surge is now the state's central election question.
