The candidates begin the last dash to election day, but many voters have already cast their ballots

by | Nov 2, 2018


This is it.

With just four days remaining, the candidates head into the final weekend of this year’s midterms making that final sprint to Tuesday’s election with political big names making last-minute pitches for the candidates.  

President Barack Obama will be in South Florida Friday afternoon to take part in a rally with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum and incumbent U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump will return to Florida to hold his second rally this week for Republican gubernatorial candidates Ron DeSantis and Gov. Rick Scott, who is running for Nelson’s Senate seat. Trump will continue his efforts to energize the base with a stop in Pensacola. U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham will be in Tampa on Friday to campaign with DeSantis.

The rallies, speeches and bus tours come as many voters in Florida have already cast their ballots. Numbers released by the state Division of Elections Friday morning show just over 4 million Florida voters have already submitted a ballot by mail or have voted at one of the early voting sites across the state. Those early voting sites, with the exception of those in the area impacted by Hurricane Michael last month, will close Sunday at the end of the day.

More than 2.1 of those early ballots were submitted by mail, while just over 1.9 million were cast at an early voting location.

The state is on pace to set a record for a midterm election. Florida is just 2 million ballots away from surpassing the total voter turnout in the 2014 midterms which was just over 6 million voters.

Nearly 1.7 million Republican voters have voted early compared to just over 1.6 million Democrats. The number of early ballots submitted the critical voting block of Independent voters stand at more than 722,000. Independent voters are expected to play a key role in the contests for governor and U.S. Senate.

The early ballots cast by GOP voters represents 41.5 percent of ballots so far, while Democrats represent 40.1 percent. Independents and minor-party voters account for 18.4 percent of early ballots cast.

 

1 Comment

  1. Karen mollohan

    Desantis and Scott all the way

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