Florida Republicans closed Democrats’ mail ballot turnout advantage in just the one day of in-person early voting. By day four, they had already pulled ahead in Miami-Dade County.
That’s a dire sign for a party that has spent the election cycle insisting their 2022 wipeout, and Miami-Dade’s flip for Republicans, was a fluke.
In 2022, Democrats made up 30% of in-person early voters before Election Day. So far this week, Democrats make up just 27%. As of Friday, about 1.5 million Republicans and about 1.2 million Democrats had already voted in Florida between both mail ballots and early voting. Republicans in the state are taking a victory lap.
State Democrats are now placing their final hopes on Florida’s elusive, last-ditch savior: that no-party-affiliated voters and Republicans are actually voting for Democrats. “In January, Florida Democrats won House District 35 with a turnout disadvantage because NPA voters voted Democrat at a 2-to-1 rate,” a Florida Democratic Party spokesperson told NOTUS. “We expect to see that trend continue, which is why we’ve worked all year to build a broad, bipartisan coalition of voters.”
There’s also a national trend at play: More Republicans are voting early nationwide, as Donald Trump’s campaign — which demonized early and mail voting in 2020 — has put a concerted effort into getting voters to bank their vote as soon as possible.
Democratic Party leaders have been saying for months that this time around, Florida is in play — a plea for the kind of national investment it would take to make it a reality. In actuality, the money never came.
There have been a few last-minute overtures to Florida from national funders — including a late-stage investment from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to Sen. Rick Scott’s challenger, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, and $400,000 from the Democratic National Committee at the end of September — but the party has by and large been left to its own devices.
Their message now? These Florida Republicans voting early are actually Democratic votes. “While [Republican Party of Florida] is yapping about turnout, they don’t realize these Republican voters are choosing blue,” Kamala Harris’ Florida communications director, Karol Molinares, wrote on X.
“Our campaign is focused on getting out the vote and ensuring every Floridian, including millions of nonpartisan-affiliated voters, have the chance to make their voices heard,” Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign manager told NOTUS. “This is a margin-of-error race that won’t be decided until every vote is counted on Nov. 5.”
In the most competitive congressional race, Democrat Whitney Fox told NOTUS, “I have no concerns that Republicans are leading in turnout, that’s to be expected in this district, and I have many Republicans who are voting for me.”
Fox is running to unseat Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and has gotten the most attention from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee than any other candidate in Florida.
Some Democratic leaders projected calm, hoping the early disadvantage points to outside factors pushing Democrats to vote on Election Day instead.
“We’ve heard from people at the doors that they have actual concerns about the mail making it on time and are voting in person,” Osceola Democratic Chair Steve Wells told NOTUS. The National Republican Congressional Committee is targeting Rep. Darren Soto’s seat in the county.
“There is the potential we could see voters switching back to the prepandemic plan of voting on Election Day, especially due to DeSantis canceling voter requests like he did,” Wells also added, referencing a Gov. Ron DeSantis-backed change in Florida law that eliminated automatic, standing mail ballot requests. This is the first general federal election with the law in effect.
But party critics in Florida say they’re frustrated by what they see as the party’s focus on capturing the Republicans and no-party affiliates instead of pouring all remaining energy into getting actual Democrats to go to the polls.
“12 days from Election Day, hanging the hopes, sacrifices and hard work of Democrats all across the state on Republicans saving them displays a failure to grasp the most basic function of the roles they occupy,” former Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chair Robert Dempster texted NOTUS. “They are the Florida DEMOCRATIC Party. Their job is to organize and turn out DEMOCRATS.”
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Claire Heddles is a reporter at NOTUS and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.