Florida EV thoughts/update thread! There was good news/bad news today.

Bad: After battling to a draw yesterday, GOP took EV by an almost 38k vote margin.

Good: Mail turnout, fueled by drop boxes, was incredible, and Dems just about cancelled out EV, before Miami-Dade!

Once Miami Dade is in tomorrow (I expect a large mail dump. They announced 27k just from drop box), I'm guessing Dems will have won today by 5k to 10k votes. The total Dem margin will be around +485k or a bit more.

So what does this all mean exactly?

To be honest, the margin is not the thing I am most focused on. I know that it is sexy to follow, but I am much more concerned about what our voters are doing, than theirs? Why? Because Republicans always turn out in Florida. That's just the facts. It's Dems who struggle with it.

So the key focus is how are we turning out, not them. So how are we turning out? Pretty good so far I think! So far, 31.5% of all registered Democrats have voted in FL (compared to 23% of Republicans). Should be about 32% with Miami Dade.

74.4% of registered Dems turned out in 2016. That wasn't enough. I would like to see us get closer to 80%. We are a little less than halfway there. In the EV period, I would like to see us get around 65-70% of registered Dems in the EV period. With days like today, that's doable.

I know MAGAs love to point to GOP voters telling pollsters they are all waiting until election day. But it's a lot easier to change your voting preference than who you vote for. I understand they're not fans of mail, but in person voting is in person voting. And when EV is open

It's easy to look at the voting centers available to you and think "yeah I'm gonna go do this now." That's why I think we'll see good GOP in person, but less available voters for election day. And here's the thing, Dems don't actually need to match GOP in turnout.

Assuming for a minute that Dems and Reps go for their candidate equally, there is a third group that people keep forgetting about: NPA (no party voters). There are almost 4 million in FL. Based on what we know from polling, I think penciling in Biden +10 for them is reasonable.

MAGA will scoff at this, and point out that Trump won indies by 4. But this isn't 2016, and NPAs have become a significantly less white group than 2016. Dems won them in the Governor's race (a race they lost) by 10%, and the polls seem to suggest it as well.

I think we could probably take 150k-200k party registration turnout loss, and still be in a good place on election night. Obviously less is better, but the GOP was 4% more of the electorate in 2018 and won their races by a fraction of a percent.

So as I mentioned, the key is our turnout, not GOP turnout or margin. It will sound counter intuitive, but a 500k vote lead with 9 million early votes is better than a 500k vote lead with 7 million early votes. We know GOP will win Eday, but they may not have many voters left.

We'll have to track early voting as it continues. Will GOP continue to have days like today? How will Dems fair in mail as less requests are outstanding. MAGA will point out that 14 GOP counties (mostly small) haven't started voting yet. This is true.

But also, Dems have traditionally done better on weekend early voting, which we've yet to have, and the last Sunday of early voting, the GOP has basically ceded it to Dems, as it is voluntary, and most GOP counties aren't having it. So a lot still to be written.

To summarize: Florida is gonna Florida. It will be close. But so far, I am happy with the position we are in and our turnout, we just need to keep it up, particularly in Dem heavy South Florida and I-4 corridor.