• Over a million ballots have already been cast in Florida’s primary elections 
• Charlie Crist and Nikki Fried plan dueling statewide tours over the final week of the primary
• Early, in-person voting begins across Florida today

With more than 1.1 million ballots cast through Friday morning in Florida, Democratic gubernatorial candidates Charlie Crist and Nikki Fried are now taking their respective shows on the road. Both are starting statewide tours as they sprint toward the finish line on August 23rd.

In-person early voting opens statewide on Saturday, but some locations have already accepted a total of 58,771 early in-person votes. Combined with the 1,041,766 vote-by-mail ballots already received, a large number of registered voters have already been to the polls. Despite the heavy early turnout, the bulk of Florida’s ballots will still be cast on election day itself.

Regardless, both Crist and Fried hope to sway all voters who have yet to cast a ballot.

Crist starts this morning in South Florida on his self-described “Hope For Florida” tour, which will include 10 days of appearances. He plans to “join elected officials and key community leaders across the state for a series of rallies, meet and greets, and Souls to the Polls efforts.” His tour will also swing through Jacksonville, Pensacola, Orlando, Gainesville and Daytona Beach.

Fried kicks off her “Something New” bus tour on Tuesday, with scheduled appearances in both Panama City and Tallahassee. Fried’s tour is expected to make stops in Jacksonville, Gainesville, Orange County, The Villages, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Fort Myers and Palm Beach. Her tour is slated to end Aug. 23 in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. But as the state agriculture commissioner, she plans to be in Tallahassee in the morning on primary election day because Gov. Ron DeSantis scheduled a Cabinet meeting for that morning at the Capitol. She’ll then travel to Miami-Dade and Broward counties to attend rallies and watch the results come in.

According to state data posted Friday, registered Democrats had cast about 506,000 of the mail-in and in-person ballots, while registered Republicans had cast about 425,000. About 157,000 had been cast by no-party affiliation (NPA) voters. Third party voters accounted for the remainder.