TALLAHASSEE — Before thousands of voter precincts open statewide Tuesday morning, nearly 40 percent of the state’s electorate have already cast ballots for the midterm elections.
According to the Division of Elections, 5.4 million of the state’s 13.7 million voters have already cast ballots through the mail or at early voting locations as of Monday.
Republicans, with a 1.5 million advantage in registered voters, cast 1.5 million at in-person early voting locations that were last available on Sunday and through almost 679,000 mail ballots. The cumulative vote total accounts for 38.2 percent of the state’s registered GOP voters.
Meanwhile, 49 percent of the state’s registered Democrats have cast ballots: 832,000 through the mail and 1.2 million at early voting locations.
“In every county in this state, Democrats are showing up at rates that we have not seen in years,” Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried stated in an emailed fundraising pitch Monday morning. “If we can keep that energy up on Election Day, I believe that we will take back Florida.”
Florida Republicans have controlled the state Legislature since 1996, and have held the governor’s mansion since 1999. But the GOP didn’t overtake Democrats in registered voters until 2021.
Fried was the last Democrat to win a statewide election, winning agriculture commissioner race in 2018.
U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, the Republican candidate for governor, anticipated a surge of voters on Tuesday.
“I’m very proud of our efforts,” Donalds said during an appearance on the “Florida Unwired” podcast with the News Service of Florida. “We know there are going to be a lot of voters showing up on election day. A lot of Republican voters are going to show up on election day. We know that. So, we just stay focused.”
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Republican turnout in the 2022 midterm was up about 600,000 over the Democrats and they have a large bench of voters who have yet to cast a ballot this year.
Meanwhile, 31 percent of the state’s 3.3 million registered voters without a political party affiliation have voted: just over 382,000 by mail and nearly 669,000 in person.
The 5.4 million votes posted Monday morning as having already been cast is 69 percent of the overall turnout in 2022 and 62 percent of the 2018 midterm turnout.
Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. across Florida.
County elections officials are expected to start posting early vote and mail-in-ballot totals about 30 minutes after polls close. The state Division of Elections will start posting election results after 8 p.m., after polls close at 7 p.m. in the Central Time Zone, which covers western Panhandle counties.
