Early Voting In Florida Will Exceed 5 Million

By
James Williams
-
Early voting has been big in Florida but Clinton and Trump will make their final statements in Sunshine State this weekend.

Politico and a number of media outlets are reporting that early voting in Florida has already exceeded the total from 2012, with voting continuing through the weekend.

State election officials reported this morning that nearly 5.3 million Floridians have voted by mail or at polling precincts. In 2012, the total figure was nearly 4.8 million.

1. early voting in florida

The voting between Republicans and Democrats is just about even with Republicans having an edge of less than 2,000 votes. Nearly 1 million voters registered with no party affiliation have also voted.

Yesterday, those numbers had the GOP voters with a lead of 18,399 raw votes and 0.41 points and today that lead has been cut drastically. Both sides recall that in 2012 President Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney but half a percentage point.

Both parties are spinning that they have the upper hand in early voting because of the no party affiliated group. But there a mix of both Donald Trump supporters in that as well as Bernie Sanders supporters in that group, so frankly neither side will really know how that group voted until Tuesday.

1. more early voting

So, with very little time left in the race and early voting over both Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton along with their surrogates will be out in Florida in a big way this weekend as the race will come to an end late Tuesday or more likely early Wednesday morning.

So, who will be in the state this weekend?

1. early voting obama

President Obama campaigned yesterday in Miami-Dade and Jacksonville, where Trump also stopped hours before. Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, returns today to Miami. Clinton’s running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, campaigns in Melbourne and then joins rocker Jon Bon Jovi in St. Petersburg on Saturday, when Clinton returns to an as-yet-unspecified city in South Florida.

President Obama returns to Puerto Rican heavy Interstate 4 corridor for a massive get out to vote event in Kissimmee for a final Sunday-before-Election Day early vote rally.

Add to the early voter push a massive ground game for Tuesday and both the Trump along with the Clinton camps will leave nothing to chance with the election counting so much on the Sunshine State.

Also worth reading: Marco Rubio and Donald Trump gaining momentum in Florida.

 

James Williams
Jim Williams is the Washington Bureau Chief, Digital Director as well as the Director of Special Projects for Genesis Communications. He is starting his third year as part of the team. This is Williams 40th year in the media business, and in that time he has served in a number of capacities. He is a seven time Emmy Award winning television producer, director, writer and executive. He has developed four regional sports networks, directed over 2,000 live sporting events including basketball, football, baseball hockey, soccer and even polo to name a few sports. Major events include three Olympic Games, two World Cups, two World Series, six NBA Playoffs, four Stanley Cup Playoffs, four NCAA Men’s National Basketball Championship Tournaments (March Madness), two Super Bowl and over a dozen college bowl games. On the entertainment side Williams was involved s and directed over 500 concerts for Showtime, Pay Per View and MTV Networks.