Report estimates 2.3 million fewer Floridians will cast a ballot in 2018

A non-profit dedicated to boosting minorities’ and unmarried women’s share of the electorate said it expects 40 million voters who made it to the polls in 2016 will not vote in 2018.

The Voter Participation Center is predicting battleground states such as Florida will see the largest drop in turnout, with the Sunshine State expected to have 2.3 million fewer voters at the polls next year.

The group expects most of the drop-off to come from what it calls the “Rising American Electorate,” or RAE, which includes unmarried women, millennials, African Americans, Latinos and all other people of color as defined by the U.S. Census.

Their Florida data points to a 30 percent reduction in RAE voters in the Sunshine State next year, or about 1.4 million fewer votes, while non-RAE voters will see a dropoff of about 24 percent, or 929,000 votes.

VPC said the groups in the Rising American Electorate will make up about 61 percent of Florida’s electorate next year, but will cast 55.7 percent of the ballots.

In 2018, the governor’s mansion and a U.S. Senate seat are up for grabs, in addition to 140 state house and state senate seats.

The VPC report is based on research from Washington D.C.-based Lake Research Partners. The 2018 turnout predictions are based on the average of turnout in 2006, 2010, and 2014 applied to 2018 population estimates.