Florida Republicans say they’re not sweating early voter turnout — not yet, anyway

Although Gov. Ron DeSantis sounded the alarm about Republican voter turnout earlier this week, other Florida GOP officials insist they’ve little to worry about as Democrats turned out in bigger numbers than they did four years ago in early in-person and mail voting.

Little to worry about yet, anyway.

Anthony Pedicini, a Republican strategist, predicts the Republicans will dominate on Election Day and that everything will turn out just fine for the party in power.

Democrats have already cashed their chips,” he said in an email to the Phoenix. “Their most reliable voters have voted. Ours haven’t yet, because Republican super-voters show up on Election Day. Anyone calling this race before Tuesday is reading half a tea leaf.”

He added: “We’ve heard it at the door, on the phone, and in the surveys: ‘I’m voting Tuesday.’ No one should be celebrating anything in Florida until 7 p.m. Tuesday.”

In traditionally red Polk County, as of Friday morning, registered Republicans had cast just 468 more votes than registered Democrats. That’s in a county where Republicans have a 13-point registration advantage.

“We’re doing a campaign of trying to get people to go out and vote early because a lot of people, they’re just used to doing it on Election Day, so that’s why the numbers look like they do right now,” said Kat Gates-Skipper, a Polk County GOP state committeewoman. “So, we’re contacting people and telling them, ‘Don’t wait until Tuesday.’”

Banking on Election Day

Hillsborough County was one of the bluest spots on the map for Democrats during the 2010s, but Republicans overtook them in party registration there in early 2025. The GOP has nearly 20,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats in the county, but Democrats held an 18,312-vote lead as of Thursday afternoon.

“What I’m seeing on the ground, it appears that the Democrats have been able to create or develop more enthusiasm for their top of the ticket than what we’re seeing from Republicans,” said Hillsborough County state GOP committeewoman April Schiff. “I’m not sure why that is, but it is what it is.”

Republicans in recent election cycles have voted in greater numbers than Democrats on Election Day in Florida, and that is what the GOP is counting on. In the August primary, Republican election day turnout was double the number for Democrats (60%-30%).

More than 4.4 million Floridians had voted as of Friday afternoon. Registered Republicans had cast 40.4% of all votes. Democrats had cast 38.4% of votes, a 2% margin. Non-party-affiliated and third-party voters made up 21.2% of the vote. That’s according to the University of Florida Election Lab tracker.

“We have seen Republicans turn out in force on Election Day in the last couple of cycles,” Democratic strategist Jackson McMillan acknowledged. “However, I’m confident at this point that they need to increase their turn-out lead to around R + 25 to be comfortable. And right now we’re in an R+2 environment. So, they need to dramatically increase their lead to be comfortable.”

“Republicans are clearly counting on Election Day to save them, but if I were them I’d be concerned about the combination of increased Democratic turnout and NPAs appearing to break heavily our way,” added Democratic strategist Chris Mitchell. “The enthusiasm is clearly on our side, but this is far from over.”

Enthusiasm gap

Some Republicans acknowledge dissatisfaction with the Iran war and the attendant high gas prices have hurt the economy and their popularity. They also attribute the sluggish early turnout to the fact that it’s a midterm election.

“It’s just more the traditional reduction in enthusiasm during an off-year election, I think,” said John Roberts, chair of the Escambia County Republican Party. “A presidential election is just going to draw in more people.”

Jack Brill, chair of the Republican Executive Committee in Sarasota County, predicts this year’s midterm elections in Florida will see closer margins than the past two election cycles.

“This will be a closer race like 2018 versus 2022, the governor’s race, where you’re seeing the same polling we’re all seeing,” he said. “It’s going to be a tight race, and it’s going to be a race where Byron [Donalds] will win, but it’s going to be much closer to 2018 than 2022.”

In 2018, the margin of victory for DeSantis, Scott, and Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried were all within 0.5 percent, triggering statutorily required-machine recounts.

By contrast, DeSantis defeated Democrat Charlie Crist in the 2022 gubernatorial race by 19 points and Republican Marco Rubio won the U.S. Senate seat by 16 points over Democrat Val Demings.

“In ’22, when I was running four years ago, I mean like, you could put hot coals in front of the polling place and our people were going to walk over those barefoot. They wanted to vote, right?” DeSantis said this week during a press conference in Crystal River. “Just a different time.”

Kevin J. Cooper, chair of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party, is confident Trump’s appeal to Republican voters has not waned. The president was the first Republican to carry Miami-Dade in more than three decades when he won there in 2024.

Toxic’

Cooper believes the Democrats caused themselves a big problem by nominating Angie Nixon as their standard-bearer for Senate, noting her affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America.

Any association with socialism can be toxic in Hispanic precincts in South Florida, home to hundreds of thousands of immigrants, refugees, and exiles from authoritarian governments in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

That taints all Democrats running in Miami-Dade, Cooper said, noting the kerfuffle that took place last week when Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared with Democratic Congressional District 27 candidate Eliott Rodriguez at a Cuban bakery in Miami.

While both Democrats have denounced socialism, some social media users criticized the bakery for hosting the two men, accusing it of association with that ideology.

“They go in there, they chitchat, they do whatever they do, and then everyone has to condemn socialism,” Cooper said.

“It just shows you that it’s a great case study as to the way that people are thinking and the way that people are feeling, that these folks go to a Cuban bakery and the bakery has to condemn socialism. When socialism wasn’t even discussed at the event,” he said.

“That just shows you how toxic this issue is from a leadership perspective from the top, that they come to South Florida with this message, and everyone recoils at it. There is no difference between the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists Party. They’ve basically merged.”

Some observers warn the governor’s race, at least, could prove more competitive than was expected at the beginning of this year. Matt Towery, a pollster with InsiderAdvantage, said his team had been analyzing the early vote in Florida and “it is entirely possible that the race for governor will be very close.”

“While the GOP has a slight advantage in the early vote, there is a large segment of independent voters in the mix … and in our surveys they are breaking more for Democrats this cycle,” he wrote on X.

Early voting in Florida ends on Saturday in many counties. Some counties will extend early voting until Sunday, Nov. 1.