2022 election sees major shift in Florida voter trends, but not in Duval
Over 2.1 million Floridians have either voted by mail or voted early in-person ahead of Tuesday’s Primary Election and early voting statistics reveal Republicans and Democrats in Florida are voting differently this election compared to elections in the past.
Prior to the 2020 election, Republicans utilized vote by mail a lot more than Democrats, who traditionally voted early in person.
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Now, Republicans are outpacing Democrats in in-person early voting and Democrats are outpacing Republicans in vote by mail.
With one day left to go before the Primary Election Florida Democrats have cast more than 734,000 mail ballots, surpassing the 577,000 mail ballots cast by Republicans by more than 150,000.
UNF Political Scientist Dr. Michael Binder says back in 2018, that statistic would have been unthinkable.
“Historically, and I say historically, I mean three years ago, Republicans heavily outpaced Democrats in mail balloting and it was a big push for the Republican Party in Florida, and they were very successful at it,” said Binder.
Chair of the Duval Democratic Party Daniel Henry said for Democrats, the pandemic sparked the shift towards mail-in voting.
“We always did a strategic push also to sporadic voters that don’t usually vote in elections to sign up for vote by mail because it made them more likely to actually cast a ballot in the election,” said Henry.
Duval GOP Chair Dean Black said after the 2020 election, Republicans became weary of mail-in voting, but he argues in Florida, those fears are unfounded.
“The way we do vote by mail here in Florida, it’s transparent, it’s safe, it’s a great way to vote,” said Black.
The early vote numbers reveal another surprising trend.
Republicans have cast nearly 70,000 more in-person early votes than Democrats.
Black said that stat is no accident.
“We began spending lots of money, frankly, encouraging Republicans to vote in-person, but do so early,” said Black.
Read: What to do if you haven’t returned your mail-in ballot
While statewide voting habits have seen a dramatic change, that isn’t the case in Duval County.
In Duval, Democrats lead the pack in both vote by mail returns and in-person early voting.
Duval Democrats have returned 3,129 more mail ballots than Republicans and cast 5,355 more votes during in-person early voting.
Henry said in-person early voting has a strong history among local Democrats.
“We haven’t seen that pattern here in Duval because I think we have a long history of our voters still showing up during early voting to vote in these elections,” said Henry.
Binder also pointed out there’s a lot more on the ballot than partisan primaries in Duval, including the teacher pay referendum and the sheriff’s race.
“So there some different things out there that will mobilize both Republicans and Democrats here locally,” said Binder.
Republicans traditionally show out in force on Election Day.
Black expects the high-profile school board race between DeSantis-backed April Carney and incumbent Elizabeth Andersen will help Republicans narrow Democrats’ current vote lead.
“And I’m looking forward to a really big election day turnout for Republicans. We’re surely gonna win the day and we have some major races that’ll be decided Tuesday night,” said Black.
Statewide, Democrats have cast roughly 90,000 more votes than Republicans.
We’ll know if Democrats succeed in maintaining that lead when polls close Tuesday.
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