Florida party chairs both heading into Election Day with high expectations

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — On Tuesday, Florida voters will head to the polls and cast their ballots, deciding everything from the Presidency to their US Senator and major policy issues like abortion and recreational marijuana.

The two major parties both see the race going in their favor based on early and mail voting turnout.

As of noon Monday, Republicans had outvoted Democrats by nearly 850,000 ballots cast statewide.

In Duval, the GOP held a vote lead of more than 6,000.

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Evan Power, Chair of the Florida Republican Party, is expecting a landslide victory up and down the ballot Tuesday based on the early vote advantage, and the fact Republicans traditionally win the Election Day vote as well.

“What we’ve been able to do is turnout our low propensity voters, get them to the polls and that’s where our advantage comes from,” said Power.

But Nikki Fried, Chair of the Florida Democratic Party, believes there’s a good chance for an upset.

She argued there are fewer Republican voters left to cast ballots on Election Day than there are Democrats.

“Donald Trump asked them to vote early and so they did. And so, you saw not just here, but across the country a lot of those Election Day voters have voted early,” said Fried. “The amount of actual Election Day voters who are Republicans is very small in comparison to the amount of strong Democratic voters that we are anticipating voting tomorrow.”

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On top of that, she expects there to be an abnormally high level of Republicans who cross party lines, epecially when it comes to Republican women.

“All the way from Kamala Harris, all the way down for Amendment 4. So, this is going to be a very different cycle where you’re not going to see the traditional, an R ballot is technically for Republicans,” said Fried.

But Power challenged Fried’s assessment, arguing polling doesn’t reflect any expectation of significant aisle crossing.

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“Donald Trump holds onto more of his base than Kamala Harris does. He’s also winning Independents, he’s winning Hispanics. So, he’s winning across the board,” said Power. “We’re gonna have a big night and Nikki Fried is gonna be left cleaning up the mess when it’s all over.”

Polls close at 7 PM EST on the Peninsula.

We can expect the first batch of results about an hour later, after polls close in the panhandle.

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