Democrats have focused on abortion rights, high property insurance costs and culture-war issues that have emerged from Tallahassee, as they try to end a Republican supermajority in the Florida House, flip a Pinellas County congressional seat held by Republican Anna Paulina Luna and score an upset in the U.S. Senate race.
“We’re going to have a lot of surprises on Nov. 5 because people are frustrated with extremism,” Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried said during a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.
As of Thursday morning, Republicans held a large lead over Democrats in ballots cast. Data posted on the state Division of Elections website showed about 2.79 million Republicans had cast ballots at early voting sites or by mail. That compared to 2.06 million Democrats. Another 1.24 million ballots had been cast by voters without party affiliations.
While more Democrats than Republicans have voted by mail, the GOP has dominated in ballots cast at early voting sites.
Kartik Krishnaiyer, a former Democratic consultant and publisher of the Florida Squeeze website, said Fried may be correct in her predictions, though at the same time they might be “a bit of hyperbole.” The problem is independents in South Florida have been acting more like Republicans, Krishnaiyer said in a video posted Tuesday night.
As of Thursday morning, 638,523 votes had been cast in Miami-Dade County by mail and in early voting, according to the state numbers. Republicans had a more than 33,000-voter advantage over Democrats in ballots cast. Unaffiliated voters accounted for 162,697, or 25 percent, of the Miami-Dade ballots cast.
“Miami Dade County is the problem,” Krishnaiyer said. “Otherwise, there would be a chance. There is a chance the Democrats can be competitive. But if you take a county that in 2016 the Democrats won by 30 (percentage) points and 291,000 raw votes, and you throw it in the Republican column, even if it’s just this margin, now 32,000 votes. … That is an unbelievable vote swing that you can’t offset.”
As early voting got underway, Republican Party of Florida Chairman Evan Power said the GOP in the past had tried to head into Election Day with vote numbers even.
“If we’re able to build an advantage that it looks like we’re going to be doing in front of Election Day, we could get to R-plus eight or R-plus nine (Republican percentage point advantage), which would be uncharted territory in Florida,” Power said.
Power said in addition to Luna’s contest with Democrat Whitney Fox, concerns had been raised earlier, but lately eased, over another freshman U.S. Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., holding her seat in the Tampa region.
“I think we’re doing a good job of communicating to those voters and turning them out,” Power said.
Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2024.