Reading too much into any one particular voting stat is never a good idea. For example, search for 2016 early voting stories in Florida and you’re bound to find endless stories written around the state talking about how turnout looked good for Hillary Clinton and Democrats. Elections are too complicated to get a good read of by any one stat. Early voting stats are relevant though, just don’t only look for what you want to look for and don’t get carried away reading too much into what you see or hear. Now that early voting is underway across the state for our primaries, here’s a first look at what’s up across Florida.
As of Sunday, here’s who’s voted so far. Republicans: 460,372 (47%), Democrats: 404,335 (41%), No party: 118,673 (12%), 3rd Party: 3,311 (.03%).
There are more Democrats registered in Florida than Republicans. Republicans make up just 35% of the state's voter registration compared to 37% of Democrats. This means that Republicans are off to a strong start with early voting in the primaries. This seems to indicate that at the onset of Florida’s primary voting, there's plenty of enthusiasm on the right. With wide-open primaries for Governor on both sides of the aisle at the top of the ticket, this primary cycle is a pretty fair assessment of overall partisan enthusiasm.
So far so good for Republicans. We’ll see if that continues.
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