Memo: Florida GOP encouraged by early voting overperformance

The Republican Party of Florida is feeling optimistic heading into Election Day, with a memo highlighting a broad set of voting data that suggests good news for the party across the state.

The Florida GOP continues to be encouraged by early voting that has overwhelmingly favored Republican voters. A memo to GOP operatives and staff outlines an R+20 advantage in early vote totals, with more than 1 million more Republicans casting a ballot in person than Democrats.

Democrats maintained an edge in vote-by-mail returns, with about 193,000 more ballots returned than GOP voters. But overall, the GOP maintains a 10-percentage-point advantage in voting as of Monday, with about 845,000 more ballots cast than Democrats.

The party is also celebrating what they describe as a poor showing for Democrats during the “Souls to the Polls” action on Sunday, noting Democrats only cast fewer than 29,000 ballots.

To put the numbers in perspective, the party compared turnout totals so far to the same point in 2020, when former President Donald Trump won the Sunshine State by about 3 percentage points.

Turnout this year is up 7 percentage points each in early, in-person voting and vote-by-mail, with an overall turnout swing from four years ago of 11 percentage points.

Overall in 2020, Democrats were up a percentage point, with a D+14 in vote-by-mail nullifying Republicans’ R+13 advantage in early, in-person voting.

Republicans have kept pace with overall early voting compared to the 2020 election, even gaining slightly with more than 3.5 million ballots cast so far from Republican voters, compared to barely 3.4 million four years ago.

Meanwhile, they claim Democratic turnout has “collapsed.” As of Monday, nearly 2.7 million Democrats had voted, while in 2020 at this point in the election more than 3.5 million had voted.

The drop may be related to vote-by-mail requests, with 1.2 million fewer Democrats requesting mail ballots this year than in 2020. It’s worth noting that drop-off is likely related to a sweeping election law Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in 2021 that canceled all standing vote-by-mail requests after the 2022 election. That means many voters might have assumed they would get a mail ballot, not knowing they had to re-request one.

But with fewer mail ballots requested and returned, Democrats needed to engage early, in-person voting. Only about 112,000 more Democrats voted early in person when compared to 2020.

The GOP is keeping a particularly watchful eye on Duval, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Pinellas and Seminole counties, locations where President Joe Biden won in 2020.

They will also be watching Palm Beach and Osceola counties, where Democrats lead in voter registration, but only narrowly.

The story may not get better for Democrats on Election Day, with the GOP data analysis finding there are still nearly 800,000 Republican voters categorized as likely or very likely to vote, who have yet to cast their ballots.

Democrats, meanwhile, have less than 600,000 voters remaining who are likely or very likely to vote.