Florida Republicans are piling into early-voting sites — and the newest official numbers show they have opened a commanding lead over Democrats in the in-person count.
That is a major shift from the first wave of pre-Election Day ballots, which was dominated by vote-by-mail.
As of the Florida Department of State’s Thursday morning update, 234,959 registered Republicans had voted early in person, compared with 210,883 registered Democrats.
That is a Republican advantage of 24,076 votes.
And the red margin was still expanding as Thursday’s voting continued.
Florida’s Voice reported that the fourth day of early voting was running 47.7% Republican to 32.7% Democrat at the time of its same-day update — a 15-point GOP advantage among the ballots reflected in that snapshot.
JUST IN: DAY 4 OF FLORIDA EARLY VOTING IS R+15
Today so far:
Republican: 47.7% (+15)
Democrat: 32.7% pic.twitter.com/8Qk62IFfsi
— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) October 22, 2026
Those numbers are not a poll.
They represent real people who have already cast ballots.
Florida Department of State showed 552,198 in-person early votes compiled through 8:05 a.m. Thursday. Registered Republicans accounted for 234,959 of them, or about 42.6%.
Registered Democrats accounted for 210,883, or about 38.2%.
No-party-affiliation voters had cast 92,842 ballots, while voters registered with other parties accounted for 13,514, leaving nearly one-fifth of the in-person electorate outside the two major-party registration columns.
The state says these figures are assembled directly from daily county reports and are cumulative through the prior day’s activity. Counties are required to report by 8 a.m., with additional noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. refreshes available when technical delays keep a county’s numbers from appearing on time.
That reporting schedule matters because an intraday social-media snapshot can be newer than the official statewide table without being a final statewide total.
The public table also provides county-by-county totals, making it possible to see which regions are driving each party’s statewide showing.
The Republican lead in this one voting method is unmistakable.
But there is an important distinction every honest analysis has to make: Florida reports the party registration of the voter, not the candidate marked on the ballot.
A registered Republican can vote for a Democrat. A registered Democrat can vote for a Republican.
Independent voters are not assigned to either party in the state’s turnout report.
So these totals are a measure of turnout composition — not an election result.
They are still valuable, because campaigns spend months trying to turn their supporters into actual voters. A ballot already cast is one less name that must be chased before Election Day.
That is why the GOP’s in-person surge matters.
Florida Republicans have been urging voters to bank their ballots now as additional counties open their early-voting locations.
The statewide totals also reveal the larger battle playing out beneath the headline.
Democrats continue to hold an advantage in returned vote-by-mail ballots.
Florida’s Thursday morning report listed 484,785 returned mail ballots from registered Democrats and 405,970 from registered Republicans — a Democratic edge of 78,815.
When mail and in-person early ballots are combined, registered Democrats were still ahead by 54,739 at that official checkpoint: 695,668 Democratic ballots to 640,929 Republican ballots.
In other words, Republicans have not taken the lead in all pre-Election Day voting.
They have taken a huge lead in the in-person early vote, and that surge is rapidly cutting into the Democratic mail-ballot advantage.
That is the developing story.
The party’s message has been consistent throughout the opening days: find the correct polling place and get the ballot in early.
On Point Politics also cautions that party registration does not show how anyone voted. Its later October 22 snapshot counted approximately 1.91 million ballots, including about 1.20 million by mail and 710,000 in person.
That tracker put registered Democrats at 40.6% of all ballots cast and registered Republicans at 38.9%, a Democratic registration edge of 1.7 points across the combined pre-Election Day vote. At the same time, it found Republicans running 4.8 points better than its model had expected at that stage.
The tracker also reported that turnout was running about 12% behind the comparable point in 2022 and had reached 24.5% of Florida’s total 2022 vote. Those numbers can still change substantially as more counties enter the mandatory statewide period and the remaining mail ballots are returned.
That combination is exactly why both parties are watching Florida so closely.
Republicans entered the cycle with a massive voter-registration advantage statewide. Democrats, meanwhile, have historically relied on early and mail voting to build a cushion before Election Day.
If Republicans can dominate the in-person early vote while keeping the Democratic mail advantage contained, the old turnout math changes fast.
There is still plenty of time for it to change again.
Florida Division of Elections explains that every county must offer early voting from October 24 through October 31, although local supervisors may add optional days before or after that required window. Some counties opened as early as October 19, which is why the first statewide reports did not yet represent identical voting schedules across all 67 counties.
Eligible voters may cast a ballot at any designated early-voting location within their county during the hours set by the local supervisor of elections. The state advises voters to check directly with their county office for the current locations, dates and hours because those details are not uniform statewide.
Election Day is November 3, and voters who wait until then must use their assigned precinct rather than any county early-voting location. That leaves more than a week for the party composition of Florida’s pre-Election Day vote to shift again.
The early-voting totals will keep moving as more counties come online, more mail ballots arrive and campaigns intensify their turnout operations.
But Thursday’s signal is impossible to ignore.
Republicans are not waiting for Election Day in Florida.
They are showing up early, in force, and turning the in-person count bright red.
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[ H/T WLT Report ]
