Early voting is in full force across the country, with Americans turning up to the polls or sending their ballots by mail before Election Day on Nov. 5. With less than two weeks to go until the big day, Republicans in Miami-Dade are coalescing and turning up in slightly bigger numbers than Democrats so far.
The difference in the number of overall votes cast by Democrats and Republicans was small as of Thursday afternoon. Nearly 22% of Democrats in the state, or 114,280 voters, had cast their ballots compared to about 24%, or 114,423 of Republicans in Miami-Dade.
Of that number, 74,480 Democrats had cast their ballots via mail, compared to 51,770 of Republicans. In turn, GOP members have outpaced Democrats with in-person voting, with 62,906 Republicans voting in-person compared to 39,949.
Statewide, 1,390,860 Republicans had voted early as of Thursday afternoon compared to 1,117,950 Democrats, according to Axios.
However, statewide figures shouldn't come as a surprise, since former President Donald Trump won the Sunshine State comfortably in 2020 against President Joe Biden, taking home 51% of the vote to Biden's 47.9%. But Democrats won Miami-Dade that year, receiving 53.4% of the ballots.
Florida has 1 million more Republican registered voters than Democrats, further cementing its status as a conservative hub, the Associated Press reports. As of August, there were 5.3 million active Republican voters compared to 4.3 million active Democratic voters. About 3.9 million voters don't affiliate with any political party or affiliate with minor parties. FiveThirtyEight's polling average shows Trump with a six-point lead over Kamala Harris.
The state has quickly crowned itself as a conservative hotspot. Just four years ago, Democrats held about 97,000 vote registration edge over Republicans. Florida, prior to this shift, also used to be considered a purple swing state.
But that all changed in 2022, when Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis won his reelection bid by a 19-point margin. This, plus an increased voter registration edge has resulted in the Florida Republican Party being touted as "the most successful party in the nation," according to a statement by Evan Power, the Florida Republican Party chair.
Florida's early-voting numbers come as more than 30 million votes have been casted early nationwide in the general election, according to the University of Florida's Election Lab. nearly 15 million of those ballots were cast in person.
In certain states, early voting has already broken records, like in Georgia and North Carolina, both of which are battlegrounds in the presidential race. In the Peach State, the secretary of state said that first-day voting totals were more than double the record and North Carolina's State Board of Elections announced just days ago that it surpassed the 1 million ballot mark.
Republicans' performance in early voting also comes as Trump has delivered inconsistent messages on the practice. On social media, interviews and on the campaign trail, he has casted doubt on the security of early and mail voting with baseless claims about fraud, while also repeating scripted comments encouraging voters to cast their ballots before Election Day.
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