Yesterday, we decided to not publish any results from the Florida Vote Projection Model because only 7,000 new votes were submitted by mail, making only minimal change in the model. However, with a haul of over 100,000 votes being submitted yesterday, we are starting the see a shift, ever so slightly, toward the Democrats. However, even with the shift, the Republicans still have the upper hand right now with ballots that have already been submitted.
Summary: Overall turnout in the state is now at 3.41%. Republican turnout is at 4.38%, while Democratic turnout is at 3.34%. NPA/Other turnout is at 2.24%. This leaves an Enthusiasm Gap of -10.83%, which still strongly favors the Republicans (but is a .33% swing toward the Democrats).
Bottom line
As far as the projected vote based on what has been submitted so far, the generic Republican vote is at 51.53%, while the generic Democratic vote is at 44.96%, a 6.57% gap. While the Democrats are starting the close the gap on the Republicans, it isn’t really closing fast enough. Again, early vote will help Democrats, but the VBM gap really needs to start closing drastically and quickly.
Details: Today, there aren’t many details that need to be discussed. Democrats increased their margins a little in the counties that are already voting Democratic. However, Miami-Dade County did see around a 3% swing toward the Republicans. Also, Lee County and Collier County still make up a disproportionate amount of the vote.
Brevard and Sarasota
The one county to start keeping an eye on is Brevard County. So far, Democratic performance has been better than expected, with an Enthusiasm Gap of 1.85%, favoring Democrats. While it is unlikely that Sanjay Patel will win against Bill Posey in the CD 8 race, the results might be closer than expected. Also, keep an eye on Sarasota County. While it looks good for Democrats right now, they also had a strong performance in VBM votes in 2016. Therefore, it might be hard to glean anything from Sarasota right now.
The Florida Squeeze 
Is there any evidence of a correlation between VBM and overall turnout? I’m skeptical there are many lessons to learn here, especially if you are comparing to a Presidential election year.
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Correlation has to do with statistics. Presidential year comparison has to do with vote choice theory. So the two are not connected.
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However, when it comes to statistics, the actual turnout rates are not being used. Instead, what is important is the composition of the vote by voting method to determine likely methods of voting in 2018. Those have been moving more toward favoring early vote recently, but composition can be measures, the mean determined over a few cycles, and then determine the likelihood of voting method.
Also, as has been mentioned in previous posts, this projection is based on the votes that have already been cast, not predicting future votes. Since the only method of voting so far is VBM, turnout rates are not a factor. They will only be a factor once EV starts.
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How does this compare to prior years? IN prior years, was one party more likely to vote early, relative to their share of the full vote?
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Yes, that is the case. Right now I haven’t put that in the algorithm yet because we are only counting VBM now. However, as soon as EV starts, then it will be updated to reflect what percentage there is based on previous elections. Going to see if there are trends and so on. As far as early vote, it usually favors Democrats heavily. But exact numbers, I don’t have that handy right now (in Burlington, VT).
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When that is good to go, I will be explaining that. So expect that on October 28th.
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