Politics & Government
Republicans Could Soon Take The Lead From Democrats In Combined Early Voting/Vote-By-Mail
As of Thursday, registered Democrats in Florida maintain a narrow lead over registered Republicans in the number of votes cast by mail.
October 27, 2022
As of Thursday, registered Democrats in Florida maintain a narrow lead over registered Republicans in the number of votes cast by mail and at early voting precincts for the Nov. 8 election. But the GOP looks likely to take the lead by this weekend.
Find out what's happening in Across Floridafor free with the latest updates from Patch.
More than 1.94 million voters have already voted in the Sunshine State. There have been 786,425 registered Democrats who have cast votes as of Thursday morning, compared to 784,643 registered Republicans, and 368,926 votes from non-party-affiliated and third-party voters, according to the state’s division of elections website.
The Democrats shot out to an early and robust lead when vote-by-mail ballots began being counted earlier this month, and currently 42.8% of all mail ballots have been cast by Democrats. Republicans are at 37.5%, and NPA’s 3rd party voters have cast 19.6%.
Find out what's happening in Across Floridafor free with the latest updates from Patch.
However, Republicans have returned a slightly higher percentage of vote-by-mail ballots requested at 38%. Democrats have returned 36% of their ballots cast.
And after just three days of early voting at the polls, GOP voters have more than an 81,000-vote lead in that category– 191,363 to the Democrats 110,347. Early voting will begin in every county in Florida on Saturday.
Historically in Florida, Democrats have turned out more than GOP voters in casting early in-person votes, while Republicans have had larger numbers go to the polls on Election Day.
Conservative activists who felt that there were voting irregularities due to the high volume of mail-in balloting during the 2020 election are encouraging voters to hold off on voting until Election Day. According to a report from the Associated Press, the plan is based “on unfounded conspiracy theories that fraudsters will manipulate voting systems to rig results for Democrats once they have seen how many Republican votes have been returned early.”
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