More than 1 million Floridians have already voted; GOP still has 5-point edge

The absentee-ballot numbers are in and Florida has officially passed the 1 million absentee-vote mark. The GOP leads by 5 points. But Democrats can do some bragging, too. Around this time in 2008, they trailed Republicans by about 16 percentage points in voted absentee ballots. That lead has been cut by two-thirds.

Still, it's a lead by Republicans. And they've closed the gap when it comes to total voter registrations (see below)

Add in the outstanding requests, and Democrats boast that they cut the GOP's 11 point lead to about 1 percentage point when it comes to total absentee ballots requested at this point (that is, voted and outstanding ballots.

Voted ballots:

Party	Voted	%
REP	468,417	45%
DEM	414,343	39%
IND	169,338	16%
Total	1,052,098

Outstanding requests

Party	Requested	%
REP	598,372	39%
DEM	618,224	40%
IND	317,325	21%
Total	1,533,921

Before noting the top 15 AB-voting hotspots, it special attention needs to be drawn to Pinellas County, in which about 18 percent of its 620,000 active voters have already cast ballots. Pinellas, home to St. Petersburg, is 48 percent of Miami-Dade's voting-population size but has cast 23 percent more ballots (21,000) than Florida's largest county

Now, here are the top 15 which account for 69 percent of the ballots cast (R/D=Republican-Democrat):

County	Total	REP	DEM	R/D
PIN	113,278	46,864	44,674	2,190
DAD	91,984	41,021	34,829	6,192
HIL	72,852	28,766	31,295	(2,529)
BRO	56,884	16,524	31,315	(14,791)
ORA	55,958	21,754	24,966	(3,212)
SAR	43,523	19,560	16,846	2,714
BRE	43,371	21,406	15,599	5,807
LEE	38,401	19,624	11,597	8,027
POL	35,197	15,033	15,082	(49)
VOL	33,647	14,984	12,822	2,162
PAS	31,619	13,377	12,461	916
DUV	30,495	15,358	11,221	4,137
CLL	28,068	17,007	6,166	10,841
PAL	24,283	7,962	12,183	(4,221)
MRN	23,717	11,377	9,149	2,228

This is from another blog yesterday, but it bears some repeating: While Democrats have closed the gap when it comes to voted absentee ballots, Republicans have closed the voter-registration gap.

In 2008, when Obama won Florida by 236,450 votes over John McCain, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 657,775, or 36-42% (5.8 percentage points).

In 2012, Democrats outnumber Republicans by 501,443, or 36-40% (a 4.3 percentage-point lead).

Democrats have complained that the Republican-led Legislature dampened voter registration drives through an onerous crackdown, which has since been lifted by the courts. However, Democrats lost most of their voters before that law was passed.

Also, the Obama campaign has registered about 322,000 new voters and it's better organized than it was in 2008. So count that in the plus column for the Democrats.

Yet, relative to 2008, Republican Mitt Romney is in a much better position than McCain in Florida. So Republicans have an edge there.

** Note: This post was substantially updated

Comments

[Dan Marino]

No update on outstanding requests?

[MLC]

GOP has a much greater lead than 5 point if you consider that the 16% of INDs that have voted favor Romney.