Of the more-than 310k vote-by-mail ballots received (not yet tallied) by Florida’s 67 SOEs, ElectionSmith, Inc. has tallied voter file information about 99.7% of those who have already voted in the presidential election. By far–over 82% — of the VBM received have been cast by white voters. Another 7% have been cast by blacks, 6% by Hispanics, and the balance other racial/ethnic groups.
Women have cast roughly 165k of the 310k VBM, accounting for roughly 53.2% of the VBM cast. That’s only slightly more than the 52.8% of women who make up active voters in the state.
Those under the age of 30–many of whom have never licked a postage stamp– have cast only 3.7% of all VBM thus far, well below the 17% of the 12.46m active voters in Florida. On the other hand, registered voters 61 and over have cast 66.6% of the VBM, nearly double the 34.3% of active voters of that age who are registered to vote.
Not surprisingly, Baby-boomers and the Greatest Generation sure do like their vote-by-mail in Florida!
Of the roughly 206k voters 61 and over who have cast VBM thus far, 87% are white. What is surprising, however, is of these 179k older white voters who’ve cast VBM thus far, less than half (47%) are Republicans, which is less than the share of older white Republicans in the September 2016, from which these data are drawn.
Again, it’s way too early to divine too much from these VBM, not only for overall turnout or support for Trump or Clinton, but also for overall VBM figures.
To be sure, these earliest of early VBM voters are likely strongest of strong partisans, unlikely to be moved by any 11th hour revelations in the presidential campaign.
I expect there to be upwards of 3m VBM cast in Florida, so there’s still a long way to go!
ElectionSmith 