People voting at precinct – Courtesy: Shutterstock – Image by Rob Crandall
As early in-person voting began in much of Florida on Monday morning, state and county elections data showed that nearly 1.2 million Floridians had already cast ballots by mail ahead of Election Day, including over 300,000 in the Miami metro region alone.
According to the county elections department, as of 2 p.m., almost 144,000 voters had already cast ballots in Miami-Dade County, including about 124,000 who did so by mail and roughly 20,000 who visited the polls on Monday. According to elections department spokesperson Roberto Rodriguez, around 500,000 Miami-Dade residents typically cast early in-person ballots in presidential elections.
According to election authorities, over 108,000 people in Broward and over 130,000 in Palm Beach County have already cast ballots.
South Florida early voting locations will be open daily until 7 p.m. on November 3. November 5 is election day.
The figures are the most recent indication that Florida, a traditional battleground state that has been largely dismissed by both parties as a sure Republican victory in this year’s presidential contest, is well into election season. Republicans and Democrats, meanwhile, are still keeping a careful eye on how voters will react to two proposed constitutional amendments that, if passed next month, would legalize adult recreational marijuana use and greatly increase access to abortion in Florida.
Democrats are ahead for the time being. Approximately 427,000 registered Republicans and 500,000 registered Democrats have returned their mail-in ballots to their local elections authorities throughout the state. Additionally, roughly 878,000 Democratic voters have not yet mailed in their ballots.
But when everything is said and done, Republicans are practically guaranteed to get the most votes. Republicans exceed Democrats by hundreds of thousands of votes, even after taking into consideration inactive voters, or those who are still able to vote but are not included in the state’s final tally. There are more than a million more active registered GOP voters in the state than Democrats.
In Florida, Republicans also hold a political edge. The Florida GOP is significantly better funded than the state Democratic Party, which gives Republicans more tools to mobilize voters in the upcoming weeks. The majority of public polls show former President Donald Trump leading his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, by anywhere between 4 and 14 percentage points.
Democrats, meanwhile, want to limit the GOP’s lead in voter turnout. To entice people to cast their ballots early, Harris’ campaign and state and federal Democrats are sending well-known surrogates throughout Florida this week.
To commemorate the first day of early in-person voting, Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried and DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison began a bus tour in Orlando on Monday. Alongside Fried, former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will lead a vote-raising breakfast in Miami on Tuesday morning.
Following his appearance at a get-out-the-vote event in Broward later in the day, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff is scheduled to attend a Harris campaign reception in Miami-Dade on Wednesday.
Trump has long attacked mail-in and early voting, saying that they are susceptible to fraud. However, since Democrats have adopted early and mail voting as a way to increase voter turnout, he has been pushing for them more and more this year. On Tuesday, he will be the speaker at a roundtable with Hispanic leaders in Doral.
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Born and raised in South Florida, Krystal is a recent graduate from the University of Miami with professional writing experience at the collegiate and national news outlet levels. She’s a foodie who loves all things travel, the beach, & visiting new places throughout Florida.