Florida early voting

With less than three days before Election Day, Republicans hold an edge in early voting in the pivotal swing state of Florida. The Associated Press reports that state election officials say that nearly 5.3 million Floridians have voted by mail or at polling precincts. That already exceeds figures from 2012, which was at nearly 4.8 million.

Republicans currently hold an edge of nearly 2,000 votes over Democrats with, nearly 1 million of those voters having registered with no party affiliation.

According to the Republican National Committee, at this point in 2012 presidential election cycle, Republicans were trailing in the Sunshine State by over 75,000 ballots cast.

Interestingly, Barack Obama won Florida by around 74,000 votes... this might suggest that this margin has been wiped out by early voting. That being said, most of the GOP gains in early voting have come over the past week or so, so they definitely have the momentum on their side. This could move even more over the next few days in their favor.

So how can you look at these numbers and come up with a poll that suggests Clinton will win this state by four or five points?

You suggest (with a straight face) that 30% of those Republicans who are casting ballots are voting for Clinton... in spite of the following facts:

• in 2012 Obama got about seven percent of Florida GOP voters (approximately the same as his national average)
• the aggregate totals of over 15 national polls suggests Clinton is averaging just over 6% of Republicans.

That's how!

The irony here folks, is that it could be argued that the "better" ground game would have the advantage in early voting, and that the side with more limited resources would have to rely more on the Election day voter.

So Hillary's argument at this point would be to say that while they may have been out organized in early voting, that the overall support is on her side. That seems like a dubious argument considering how much they are touting their operational advantage.

One has to wonder that if their big organization is the reason that early voting is actually as close as it is, and that she just suffers from an overall drop in support from the heavy African American Miami-Dade and Broward counties that have pushed Obama towards victory twice.

If election day voting is approximately the same as it was in 2012, then Trump should win this state by fifty to seventy five thousand votes.