FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — More than 1.2 million Florida voters have already cast their midterm election ballots, before the candidates for governor face off in their only debate. It reflects a continuing desire by many to vote from the comfort of their homes, rather than lining up at an early voting center or Election Day polling place.
Democrats, as of Sunday, were ahead of Republicans.
But that doesn’t foreshadow the results and doesn’t give the Democrats reason to cheer or Republicans cause to panic.
“We’re still far enough away from the turn-in deadline that it’s a little too early to tell,” said Richard DeNapoli, the elected state Republican committeeman from Broward and a former county Republican Party chairman.
Best case for the Democrats: It’s too early to tell what will happen with a little more than two weeks until Election Day. Worst case for Democrats: It’s a positive blip before a Republican wave.
“Things are very complicated in Florida. And I would not take the mail-ballot-return statistics at face value,” said Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist who has extensively studied how people vote and tracks voting.
Statewide
The statewide margin for Democrats is relatively slim: 45,518 ballots.
As of Sunday morning, figures from the Florida Division of Elections show 489,685 Democrats had voted their mail ballots.
Registered Republicans had cast 444,167 with another 210,571 from no party affiliation/independent voters and 16,747 from people registered in various minor parties.
Of the ballots that have been returned so far, 42.2% are from Democrats and 38.3% from Republicans.
No one knows for sure, of course, how those people voted. Political analysts believe, and public opinion polling suggests that the overwhelming majority of ballots cast by Democrats contain votes for U.S. Senate candidate Val Demings and gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist.
The vast majority of Republican voters are going for U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Ron DeSantis.
People who return their ballots quickly are likely to be voters who are the most committed to one party or its candidates, and aren’t likely to be swayed based on events such as Monday night’s DeSantis-Crist debate or President Joe Biden’s planned Nov. 1 trip to Florida to rally support for Democrats.
Unknown is just what no party affiliation/independent voters and members of various minor parties are doing with their votes.
Building a lead
To have any hope of winning the marquee contests, Democrats would need a significant advantage in mail voting and in-person early voting heading into Election Day.
On Election Day itself, the results go Republican, McDonald said.
One indicator of the difference in results from different voting methods was shown at DeSantis’ Oct. 16 campaign rally in Coral Springs.
Imploring his supporters to “not take any of this for granted,” and show up to vote, DeSantis asked the crowd how many people had voted already by mail. There was scattered applause and cheers.
There was far greater cheering and applause when he asked two other questions: how many people would vote at in-person early voting centers and, especially, for “how many of you are going to wait to vote on Election Day?”
With in-person early voting in Florida’s largest counties starting on Monday, it’s too early to tell how the Democrats will fare, McDonald said.
Evolution of mail voting
Florida made mail voting much easier in the aftermath of the contentious 2000 George W. Bush-Al Gore presidential election, unlike the old absentee ballot system that required voters to provide a reason such as being out-of-town on Election Day.
For most of the past two decades, that was one of the Florida Republicans’ most potent weapons, helping the party rack up win after win after win. Democrats used to prefer in-person early voting.
The Republican advantage in mail voting had been narrowing in recent years, McDonald said.
Voting patterns were upended in 2020.
Many Democrats, who polls showed were more concerned than Republicans about COVID-19, shifted to mail ballots, preferring not to gather for in-person early voting or at neighborhood polling places.
And large numbers of Republicans abandoned mail voting after an extensive effort by then-President Donald Trump to discredit mail balloting as rife with fraud, even though independent investigations have uncovered nothing more than sporadic minor instances around the country.
One side effect was reducing Republican confidence in voting by mail.
The changes from 2020 make it more difficult to discern broader implications from mail voting numbers 16 days before Election Day, McDonald said.
Usually by about this point before an election, said Sean Phillippi, who has worked for many political campaigns, in South Florida and statewide, about half the mail ballots sent to voters have been returned.
But many voters who received ballots this year got them because they requested them for the 2020 presidential election. Those requests are good through this year’s election, meaning some ballots went to voters who have no interest in voting in a midterm election.
Making it even harder to predict, McDonald said, is research in other states has shown that simply receiving a mail ballot is a reminder to vote and so convenient that some people who hadn’t intended to vote go ahead and cast a ballot anyway.
South Florida
The three largest counties in the state — Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach — are Florida’s Democratic stronghold. Democrats would need enormous margins in the region and Republicans need to hold down the Democrats’ margins in South Florida.
As of Sunday morning:
— Broward County — 8.3% of the county’s registered Democrats have already voted compared to 7.7% of Republicans and 4.2% of no party affiliation/independents. By the numbers, that’s 49,713 Democratic, 20,335 Republican and 15,512 NPA/independent ballots.
— Palm Beach County — 15% of registered Democrats have voted, compared to 9.45% of Republicans and 7.2% of no party affiliation/independents. By the numbers, that’s 59,596 Democratic, 27,388 Republican, and 21,039 NPA/independent voters.
— Miami-Dade — 8% of registered Democrats have voted, compared to 8.2% of Republicans and 4.9% of no party affiliation/independents. By the numbers, that’s 46,196 Democrats, 35,575 Republicans and 24,000 NPA/independents.
— Statewide — 9.8% of registered Democrats have voted compared to 8.4% of registered Republicans and 5.3% of no party affiliation/independent voters. That works out to 489,685 Democrats, 444,167 Republicans and 210,571 NPA/independents.
Phillippi said he expects Broward’s returns relative to Palm Beach County to improve, at least somewhat, in coming days.
Palm Beach County sent out its first big batch of mail ballots on Sept. 30. Broward’s were mailed to voters on Oct. 6, so voters haven’t had them as long.
Also he said, Palm Beach County has an older electorate, and older voters have higher voter turnout.
Reading tea leaves
In some years, a small number of votes could make a difference in outcome in Florida, which has a history of exceedingly close elections.
Polling suggests that isn’t likely in 2022. Multiple surveys show DeSantis comfortably ahead of Crist and Rubio leading Demings.
Democrat Phillippi said mail voting numbers aren’t “nearly good enough for Democrats.”
“There are really no competitive statewide races. There was just a sense of urgency when President Trump was on the ballot or when he was sitting president. There just is not the sense of urgency now.”
DeNapoli wasn’t yet ready to declare victory and cautioned Republicans against complacency. “We still need to be campaigning if you’re behind by 10 [points],” he said.
And millions of votes remain to be cast. “What we don’t know is what’s going to unfold over the next couple of weeks of in-person early voting,” McDonald said.
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