Why Steve Schale is optimistic about Florida. But does this make sense? (Live from Deep in the Weeds of the Everglades)
Steve Schale: It is Saturday--GO WATCHÂ FOOTBALL!: "I asked some data people a question...
...Almost 50,000 2016 Republican early voters were Democratic early voters in 2012. In other words, if none of those voters had switched, Dems would have a roughly 100K vote lead over the GOP today--even though that lead would have been meaningless.
What Steve is saying is that 50,000 of Florida's early voters so far are people who switched their registration from "Democratic" to "Republican". These 50,000 almost surely voted substantially for Romney back in 2012.
At the moment there are 2.27 million early votes cast by Democrats, 2.26 by Republicans, and 1.20 cast by those with no party preference. In 2012 Democrats had cast 76,000 more ballots than Republicans when early voting ended--and Obama won by 74,000. If the 50,000 who have switched from Democratic to Republican since 2012 all voted for Romney in 2012, then Democrats gained by 98,000 votes on election day itself.
