So, to start off, I have to admit something. I made a mistake yesterday. I accidentally took around 10,000 to 15,000 votes away from the Democrats in Lee County. An input error on my part. So, the Republican did not have as big of a swing as the model projected. They did have a swing actually, of around .15%, but not a massive swing. So basically, scrap whatever I said in that article. With that, I learned my lesson, and am triple checking my numbers when I input them.
That being said, for the first time in this election, Democrats have taken the lead in the vote projection model. With Palm Beach actually reporting somewhat correct numbers today (they are still a few hundred off from what their website says), and me not messing up in Lee County, we can see Democratic momentum. This is primarily because of the performance of South Florida.
Turnout Summary: As of this morning before polls opened, 4,069,505 people have voted, which is a 30.65% turnout rate. This is, let’s face it, massive! The Republican turnout rate is 36.09%, while the Democratic turnout rate is 33.00%. NPA/Minor party turnout is 20.49%. The Enthusiasm Gap is at -3.4%, favoring Republicans.
Bottom Line: According to the vote projection model, a generic Democratic candidate would win 48.51% of the vote, while a generic Republican would win 48.46%, a small .04% gap. I cannot compare this to yesterday’s model because of the issues I mention previously
It is still a very close election. This election has always been very close. The reason I say this is because some Republican website used my numbers, saying that Florida was becoming a lost cause for Democrats. Nothing is further from this truth, and I want the readers to know that this model has shown in the last week that his was an extremely close race within the recount margin.
Details: Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade Counties continue to perform better for Democrats. Not only is the pre-Election turnout rate high, over 5% higher in all three counties compared to 2014, but the votes are more Democratic. We are seeing Broward County reaching a projected vote total of 70% for a generic Democratic candidate. The reason for this is because Democrats in Broward and Palm Beach are actually turning out, while Republicans are not. And while these are Democratic counties, there are thousands of Republicans in these counties. Their lack of participation is helping Democrats statewide, big time.
What to watch: While most counties have already surpassed their 2014 Pre-Election Day turnout rate, Pinellas County has not. In fact, it is 1.72% off of the 2014 rate. With this lack of turnout, it means there are a lot more undecideds waiting until Election Day to vote. This helps Democrats. Any campaign for either party should be putting a boatload of resources into Pinellas County in these last four days, as it seems there are still a lot of undecideds out there.
The Florida Squeeze 
I’ve recently started reading your articles – thanks for all of the information! Can’t wait until the elections are over. 🙂
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Dave, What is your sense on what is going on in Miami-Dade so far with overall party turnout?
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Republican voter turnout performance in Miami-Dade is better than in the rest of South Florida. Democrats have room for improvement.
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Thanks. Still lots of voting to come!
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Dems picked up net 10k votes on the same day in 2016 vs 5k yesterday. Dems are currently net ~58k votes behind where they were in 2016 (when they by 100k-700k). I still think it’s an R win for gov/sen by 2-4% unless election day voting is massively different than 2016.
https://fr-companion.wixsite.com/fr-companion
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Two things. First, you really can’t compare presidential year numbers to midterm numbers. Percentages, yes, but not raw numbers. Second, I think Election Day will be massively different.
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Normally I’d agree with you, but with Republicans running at 92.5% of their early vote 2016 levels at this same point and Democrats at 91% rather than the more typical 50-70% (already way passed early voting in *total* in 2014, with probably another 1-2 million early votes to come), Florida is turning out at 2016 levels. It’s possible election day will be massively different, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
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Again, NPA/Minor Party votes. Their votes count too. Also, party registration doesn’t explain vote choice.
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Yes, NPA/Minor party votes are 18.9% of the vote at this time vs 20% at the same time in 2016. But I have a hard time believing they will have voted more for Trump (who missed Rubio’s margin by 600k) than they will for Scott and Desantis, which is what you’d have to imply to have a good re-through on that (also doubt there will as much R cross-over compared to 2016 given Trump was not liked by many Rs still at the time).
Again, 90%+ of the registered parties vote their own party. Not in any given small locale but across the entire state they will and they will likely offset. Unless this weekend is just a Dem blowout, I’m going with 2-4% R state-wide wins Tuesday. We’ll find out soon enough.
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But only looking at registered party voters and saying that the projection is based on that alone assumes that all NPA/Minor party voters will split 50%-50%, or that they will have the same turnout composition as 2016.
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I addressed that:
“I have a hard time believing they (NPA) will have voted more for Trump (who missed Rubio’s margin by 600k) than they will for Scott and Desantis, which is what you’d have to imply to have a good re-through on that (also doubt there will as much R cross-over compared to 2016 given Trump was not liked by many Rs still at the time)”
So yes, I expect them to go more R than they did for Trump, when Trump still won by over 100k votes.
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So, you think that NPA vote choice in Collier County is going to be the same as NPA vote choice in Orange?
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Is your projection a projection of the current vote, or the vote including E-day?
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Only of the current vote. It is impossible to project turnout. However, most of the counties will be having live Election Day returns, so watch the model on Election Day! I will be updating it ever hour or so.
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What happens if you compare South Florida to 2016? 2014 was a massive Red Wave so it is understandable that Republicans would be down.
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As far as turnout? South Florida has the same trends as most of the other counties. I haven’t really examined those trends yet, but that is something I will do Monday when all the EV is in.
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Have you taken into account the difference in the absentee voter poll of 108,000 since 2014? The Republicans had the bigger pool to draw from in 2014 and now the Democrats have the bigger pool there. I think those people rarely vote if they don’t return their absentee ballot by election day.
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Absolutely can see that. As far as Election Day turnout, I’m not going to predict. We will just see how it goes then. Luckily, a lot of counties are going to have live results.
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Fellow McGill grad here.
Thanks for all your info.
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Thank you fellow McGillian!
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