The Earliest Voting Trends of the 2024 Presidential Election – Top 3 Takeaways – September 27th, 2024
- A surge. The surge most Floridians have been thinking about has been related to Hurricane Helene’s devastating storm surge along Florida’s Gulf Coast, primarily in the Big Bend. While we’ll take stock of where those most impacted by storm stand throughout the day today, there’s another surge that’s showed up in Florida’s ballot requests throughout this week. Florida’s election season officially kicked off last Saturday with the deadline for overseas ballots for eligible voters having arrived. While early in-person voting doesn’t kick off in Florida until October 21st, this week has brought about a surge in requests by Floridians for vote-by-mail ballots. As of Thursday, over 563,000 Floridians had vote-by-mail ballots sent out to them. That’s a total that’s only about 12% of the number of vote-by-mail ballot requests from the 2020 presidential election cycle. That number is certain to rise as we get closer to Election Day, but what’s already clear is that there will likely be far fewer people seeking vote-by-mail ballots this cycle, than during the COVID cycle of four years ago. But what’s most interesting isn’t the number of ballots requested and sent out so far. It’s who’s requesting them. Four years ago, nearly 45% of all vote-by-mail ballots sent out were requested by Democrats compared to only 31% for Republicans. So far in this cycle we’re seeing something that’s quite a bit different. Just over 41% of ballot requests that have been sent out thus far have been sent to Republicans, with only 37% requested by Democrats. Again, it’s early, but…
- The first potential trend for the 2024 General Election may be starting to set in. Fewer Floridians voting by mail, driven disproportionately by far fewer Democrats voting by mail. In the early going we’re seeing an 8% decrease in Democrat participation compared to four years ago, compared to a 4% increase in Republican participation in the partisan splits. Now it’s worth noting that four years ago Democrats still held an outright voter registration advantage over Republicans in Florida, and currently Republicans hold a greater than 1 million voter advantage. So, a natural swing in the partisan splits towards Republicans isn’t to be unexpected. But here’s the thing and it’s a considerable thing. If Democrats led in voting by mail by 14-points four years ago, and Donald Trump won Florida by 3.4 points, with Republicans performing well in races down ballot across the state, what may the implications be if Republicans maintain an advantage with vote-by-mail ballots this time? Until we see what’s stirring with early voting in just over three weeks, it’ll be a bit too early to read a lot into anything. But the earliest returns in Florida, in this election, suggest that there’s the potential for a red wave to play out in this state. Two years ago, that occurred largely for three reasons. 1) Independents breaking hard for Republicans led by DeSantis 2) Democrats crossing over to vote for Republicans in larger numbers than we’d previously seen 3) Lower voter turnout among Democrats. One of those three almost certainly won’t happen in this cycle. We’re not going to see many Democrats cross the isle to vote for Trump and Republicans down ballot the way they did for DeSantis and his cabinet two years ago. But the other two could still be in play. The one that could play up the biggest is lower voter turnout among Democrats over four years ago. Speaking of turnout…
- Voting is up in Virginia. The first potential swing state to offer in-person early voting, in addition to vote-by-mail ballots, was Virginia. And the early returns suggest Virginians are motivated. Overall voting in the generally blue state won by Joe Biden by ten points four years ago, but then flipped by Republican Governor Glen Youngkin three years ago, is voting early at higher rates than they’ve ever voted early before. Overall ballots cast by both methods in Virginia are running 7% higher than four years ago. And that’s notable because election turnout four years ago was the highest in 120 years. So, what’s driving the record early voting in what has the potential to be a bellwether state? According to Virginia Tech Political Science Professor Karen Hult: Increased interest and increased involvement by Republicans in early voting. This follows the Sunday tele-rally in which former President Trump and Governor Youngkin were encouraging Republicans to vote early, and that of course is quite different from what happened in 2020, in which many Republicans were calling early voting into question as not being fair or appropriate. The early returns on Trump’s “Swamp the Vote” campaign to get voters to vote early appears to be working. The early signs in Florida appear to be positive for Trump and Republicans. The early voting trends in Virginia are especially encouraging for Trump and Republicans. Donald Trump doesn’t have to win Virginia to become President of the United States, but if he’s even particularly competitive in Virginia, it’s almost a certainty that he’ll be the next president of the United States. You’re familiar with the old expression…” It’s not about how you start, it’s about how you finish”. That’s true. But the more effective a political party is at turnout out the vote early, the better the chance that party has of delivering a strong finish. Four years ago, Democrats ran up the score through vote-by-mail ballots and early voting. If Republicans can remain competitive through these early weeks of voting leading up to Election Day, there’s likely to be a different result, and potentially even a declared presidential winner on Election Day (wouldn’t that be nice). To be continued…
