A quick snapshot of what Florida political insiders and operatives are talking about with just over 24 hours to go before polls close nationwide.
With early voting wrapped and many remaining Florida voters preparing to storm the polls tomorrow, the numbers show Republicans whistling their way into Election Day while Democrats appear to be paddling upstream. Despite the big Sunday “Souls to the Polls” push—a reliable anchor of Democratic strategy—the blue team barely made a dent in the GOP’s early voting cushion.
SOULS TO THE POLLS FIZZLED IN FLORIDA
Cracking open the numbers, we start with a voter snapshot from Saturday night, when Republican ballots outnumbered Democrats by a whopping 876,673—an 11.22% advantage. Cue Sunday’s traditional Democratic turnout surge, and the net gain? Just 20,000 votes. By the time early voting doors shut on Sunday, the Republican edge still stood firm at 10.47%, with 852,123 more ballots than their counterparts. Not exactly the barn-burner comeback Democrats hoped for.
As of Monday, here’s how the early vote scoreboard reads:
- Republicans: 3,566,661 (43.12%)
- Democrats: 2,724,499 (32.94%)
- No Party Affiliation (NPA): 1,782,002 (21.54%)
- Others: 199,149 (2.41%)
- Total: 8,272,311
For the Democrats, that’s a lot of ground to make up in just one day. And historically? Election Day is when the GOP delivers the firewood.
Also: shoutout to Florida’s Voice for putting together a real-time turnout page that was the source for some of the data in this report.
LEON COUNTY SNAPSHOT
Leon County is home to more than just bad college football and legislative rumblings—it’s also a 60-40 Democratic fortress. But this year, even Leon is showing signs of fatigue:
- Democratic Votes: 57,746
- Republican Votes: 35,437
- NPA Votes: 19,045
At first glance, Democrats’ 19.4% lead looks decent, but here’s the twist: they’re underperforming their own past playbook. Overall, we started the cycle down 21,000 among total registered voters versus 2020, and early voting turnout is nearly 2% below 2020’s early voting turnout rate. For the Republicans, early votes only slipped by small margin, but for Democrats, that translates into a much larger deficit. When you factor in incumbent Republican State Senator Cory Simon’s incumbency and the inroads he’s already made among Democrats, challenger Darryl Parks can only hope for an Election Day miracle.
Across the state, the picture isn’t any rosier for Democrats, but it is more red. The Republicans’ statewide ballot advantage heading into Tuesday—a cool 11-point spread—doesn’t exactly make life easy for Democrats like Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and certainly not Vice President Kamala Harris, neither of which can expect much out of Florida tomorrow night.
ZOOMING OUT
Florida isn’t the only place making life tough for Democrats. According to a Trump campaign memo, a similar trend is rippling through key battlegrounds nationwide. And it’s not just campaign cheerleaders saying it—Obama’s own 2012 campaign maestro, Jim Messina, called the early voting data “scary” during an MSNBC interview. He admitted that panicked friends have been lighting up his phone, comparing this cycle’s turnout to 2020’s and they aren’t liking what they’re seeing.
In battleground states, urban and female voter turnout—critical Democratic power blocs—are trailing behind 2020 numbers:
- Arizona: Urban turnout is down over 385,000 votes; female turnout, off by 170,000.
- Georgia: Urban participation has dipped by 153,846 votes, and female turnout by nearly 47,000.
And it gets worse for Democrats when you look at Michigan and Pennsylvania, where voter enthusiasm compared to 2020 seems to have taken an extended coffee break.
Several GOP insiders say they expect that if Trump wins tomorrow night, he will win big, and many are expecting things to be settled by early Wednesday. That’s backed up by a new prediction from election prognosticator Nate Silver, who says Trump has nearly double the chance to pull out a landslide compared to Harris. So if Harris pulls it out, expect her victory may be much narrower.
THE WILD CARD: LATE ARRIVING BALLOTS
Despite the good news so far for Republicans, everyone would be wise to steel themselves for some late night surprises, which seems to be the norm rather than the exception over the last many voting cycles. Late arriving and late-counted ballots might suddenly upend even the most optimistic election night parties, with last-minute mail-in ballots from heavy blue areas arriving in the nick of time. Most swing states are supposed to lock in results at poll close, but if envelopes marked with tomorrow’s date flood in, we could be in for a suspenseful count.
BOTTOM LINE: DESPITE THE RED TIDE RISING, IT’S NOT OVER UNTIL THEY CALL IT. GO AND VOTE.
Grab your popcorn, and keep a watchful eye both in Florida because you live here, and Pennsylvania because it will be an early bellwether for polling accuracy in the national race.