To: America
From: Steve Schale, A Tired Florida Man
Re: 2nd to last Memo
2 days until E-Day
4 days until I am home for a nice long time.
6 days until FSU basketball tips off.
That's all I care about now.
It is Sunday. We are so close to the end of this shibacle that let’s all be extra careful not to do anything to break it.
Today marks Souls to the Polls. I am celebrating this day by taking a group of Turkish political party leaders to St. Mark AME Church in Orlando with my buddy, State Representative Elect Kamia Brown. President Obama is in Osceola County today, a place that he held a rally in 2008 with then President Bill Clinton, and Fake Former President Matt Santos. I believe it may have been the first political rally in Florida with three Presidents on stage, that is, outside of a meeting of Condo Presidents in Broward.
Speaking of Broward, Hillary Clinton was there on Saturday, helping turn out more vote. Broward had another solid day, with almost 36K in-person votes.
All in all, just over 420K Floridians voted yesterday, it was the best net day of the cycle for Democrats.
Total Ballots cast: 6,152,099
Total Vote By Mail: 2,536,167 (42.2%)
Total Early Vote: 3,615,932 (57.8%)
Democrats: 2,435,493 (39.58%)
Republicans: 2,403,171 (39.06%)
NPA: 1,201,715 (21.35%)
Total Margin: DEM +0.59%
For the record, my go-to model for this cycle has been 40D-39R-21NPA. NPA’s are going to outpace it, but I do think +1 DEM is pretty safe.
One of the biggest things to note is how fast the NPA share has grown
After Sat: 21.35%
After Fri: 20.55%
After Thurs: 20.2%
After Wed: 19.8%
After Sunday: 19.3%
So far, through Friday, the electorate is 67.4% white, but among NPAs, it is 63.5% white. Among all voters, through Friday, it is 14.5% Hispanic, but among NPA’s, it is 20.2%
Right now, I think about 65% percent of the likely electorate has voted. At the higher turnout rate, I think we will be between 66-67% of likely voters having voted through Sunday. Another way of looking at this – our early vote as of yesterday is 91 more people than voted in all of Pennsylvania in the 2012 election. EV Florida with 2 days to go would be the 5th largest voting state in America.
Sunday voting in Florida is optional by county, and while most counties said no, all the major big counties said yes. It should be an opportunity for the Democrats to add to their margin.
Hillsborough followed up a record day by falling 300 votes short of setting another record. It was also the strongest day for Democrats since the beginning of the in-person early voting, netting a 3,000 vote plurality heading into Soul’s to the Polls. Again, NPA voters really drove the day, with almost as many NPA voters (8,237) voting as Republicans (9,026). Dems now hold a 25K vote lead.
Yesterday: 41.2 Dem – 30.7 GOP – 28.1 NPA.
Total: 42.1 Dem – 35.8 GOP – 22.1 NPA
I-4
Over 110,000 people voted yesterday, and the Dems won the day by over 10,000. But again, the big news is NPA, which made up 28% of all the voters along the highway.
To give you an idea of how the NPA surge looked yesterday, here are the I-4 counties with all votes counted, and just yesterday:
To date: 41.1 D - 35.9 R – 23 NPA
Yesterday: 40.5 D -31.3 R – 28.2 NPA
The other thing in here that is good news for the Democrats, while the I-4 corridor is almost exactly where it should be in terms of projected vote: 26.71% of the state through yesterday, compared to my projection of 26.38%, it isn’t distributed equally. Places over-performing: Osceola and Orange. Under-performing? Polk and Volusia. That almost look like the opposite of a secret-Trump vote surge.
In fact, yesterday, Osceola saw almost 32% come from NPA, and Orange almost 30%. I don’t have the time today to run the demographics on that, but I honestly don’t think I need to, because by this point, readers of this deal know who lives there.
Just to recap the counties on I-4 –
Volusia (Daytona) – should lean a little red this year.
All votes: 39.7 R, 37.2 D, 23.1 NPA
R + 4,235
Seminole – suburban Orlando, more white/republican.
All votes: 42.6 R, 35.1D, 23.3 NPA
R +10,234
Orange (Orlando)
All votes: 46 D, 30 R, 24 NPA
D +59,800
Osceola – very Hispanic. President Obama there today.
All votes: 47.5 D, 26.7 R, 25.9 NPA
D + 20,217
Imperial Polk – between Tampa/Orlando – lean R
All votes: 40.1 R, 39 D, 20.9 NPA
R +1,827
Hillsborough – twice for Bush, twice for Obama
All votes: 42.1 D, 35.8 R, 22.1 NPA
D +24,608
Pinellas – lean D county on Gulf, west of Tampa
All votes: 38.8 R, 38.5 D, 22.7 NPA
R +840
Last look at I-4, by looking at the media markets, Republicans hold a slight edge in both the Orlando and Tampa media markets. To win Florida, Trump needs to grow slightly from Romney in both Tampa, and Orlando. Given the conservative strength in places like Lake and Brevard, there was an opportunity to do that. So far, at least on the partisanship, the Orlando DMA is leaning pretty much a draw. That is a win for Clinton.
In Tampa, Republicans have a slight registration advantage, but nothing outside the normal. The counties outside of urban Tampa have strong GOP registration advantage, though particularly as you go to places like Sarasota, don’t vote as Republican as they register. As Obama proved in 2012, you don’t have to win the Tampa DMA to win Florida, you just have to keep it close to a tie. Based on the +3 GOP registration edge, with 22% NPA, I think she’s probably right there.
South Florida
I’ve run out of words to describe Miami. Mr. 305 himself might use the term “en fuego” to describe it.
Yesterday, 50K more people voted there, meaning 708K have voted there through yesterday, compared to 879K who voted there in the entire 2012 election. Yesterday almost matched Friday’s record, but compared to the rest of the state, it was even bigger. 12% of all voters came from Dade yesterday, and it was 42.5 Dem, 33.2 NPA, 24.4 GOP. That NPA number is going to be all Caribbean and Hispanic voters. I honestly at this point don’t know what to think about final turnout in Dade. It is going to be well over a million votes at this point, which if HRC wins by just same margin as Obama, will net +237K votes to her margin. If she increases the margin to say 65-35, which isn’t inconceivable at all, it goes to 300K. If that happens, she’s not going to lose Florida.
Broward had another really great day, and Palm Beach continues to get better. Right now, I think she easily wins Broward and Dade by 500K combined votes, which in the back of my head has been the magic number.
Palm Beach
All votes: 46 D, 39 R, 24 NPA
D +66,510
Broward
All votes: 55.7 D, 22.1 R, 22.2 NPA
D +188,499
Miami-Dade
All votes, 44 D, 29.8 R, 26.2 NPA
D +100,291
Duuuuuuval
The Obama effect:
D’s were down 3,000 when he got there.
They are now ahead.
#ThanksObama
Additional notes:
I don’t have yesterday’s diversity numbers, but based on voting patterns, there is no question in my mind we will go into Election Day under the 2012 standard of 67% white. The electorate is now under 67.6% white (67 In 2012), with Black and Hispanic voters continuing to grow in share of the electorate. Friday was 61 white to 39 non-whites. There is no question in my mind that the electorate will be more diverse than 2012.
Miami and Orlando continue to over-perform. Fort Myers is the bright spot for Republicans. There are still another 3.4m or so likely votes, but I'm sure of one thing, the folks in Brooklyn have to be feeling better than the folks in Trump Tower.
More later.