Turnout, mail votes are key to Miami-Dade’s upside-down, record-setting August primary
The coronavirus pandemic hasn’t hurt participation in South Florida’s August primary. Not even close.
But it does appear to have upended Miami-Dade County’s previously established voting patterns during early voting.
In developments that could influence the outcome of important races on the ballot in Tuesday’s election, turnout trends among Democrats and Republicans have flip-flopped from just four years ago, with Democrats building a 15-point, pre-Election Day advantage.
Republicans, who once dominated mail ballots, had cast more votes in-person than Democrats heading into Sunday, according to information from the state and Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections. But Democrats, who previously favored early voting, are voting by mail this time in unprecedented numbers.
And independents, including thousands of voters who tend to skip Florida’s closed summer primaries, are much more engaged this year, with their turnout double what it was in 2016.
As the last day of early voting wrapped up Sunday and the focus moved to Election Day on Tuesday, the new patterns were resetting expectations for total turnout in the August primary, traditionally a low-participation event.
“We’re at a historic turnout even now,” Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Christina White said in a Saturday afternoon interview, a day before an expected Sunday surge in voters. “What’s going to be interesting to see — and I won’t know until the election concludes — is, is it just a shift to those voting methods and therefore Election Day is light? Or is it high turnout in all three voting methods? I think we’re all waiting to see how that plays out.”
Through Sunday morning, after 13 straight days of early voting in Miami-Dade and weeks of mail voting, pre-Election Day turnout was on pace to surpass the 304,440 votes cast in the entirety of the August 2018 primary. Even before Sunday’s vote — which by 1 p.m. had seen 5,131 ballots cast at early voting centers — more than 290,000 votes had already been submitted by mail and at early voting centers.
Much of the 2020 turnout was due to a massive surge in mail voting pushed by Democrats and by elections officials, who see it as a way to keep voters and elections workers safer during the pandemic. White said her office spent $145,000 on printing and postage to mail a vote-by-mail registration form to every household in Miami-Dade with a voter not yet registered to receive a mail ballot.
“I certainly think it had a big impact,” said White.
More than 232,000 mail ballots had been returned in Miami-Dade through the end of the day Saturday. Thousands more were likely to be received by mail, at early voting center drop boxes Sunday, or submitted in-person on Election Day by 7 p.m. at one of four locations: the elections headquarters in Doral, the Stephen P. Clark Government Center elections branch office, or at the North Dade or South Dade regional libraries.
Voters who have yet to cast their mail ballots also have the option of voting in-person Tuesday at their local precinct after poll workers confirm that they have not voted by mail.
Though the coronavirus pandemic has complicated campaigns, counties around the state are seeing an increase in early voting. That includes Broward County, where Supervisor of Elections Pete Antonacci sent out about 1 million vote-by-mail registration forms ahead of the election.
Steve Vancore, a Democratic political consultant who works with Antonacci’s office, said the early voting totals are tied directly to the historic number of voters receiving mail ballots. “They asked for it. They got it. Might as well go vote,” he said.
In Miami-Dade, where more than 19% of registered voters had participated as of Sunday morning, much of the surge has come from mail ballot returns among independent and, especially, Democratic voters. That’s a change from 2016, when Democrats led Republicans in mail and early voting by two percentage points heading into the election.
The big lead by Democrats isn’t because Republicans are staying home this year. They just aren’t matching gains by Democrats.
Four years ago, about 16% of county’s registered Republicans cast ballots by mail in the August primary. And entering Sunday, that percentage had remained the same: once again, about 16% of the county’s nearly 400,000 Republicans have cast mail ballots. The difference this year: only 9% of Miami-Dade’s Democrats cast mail-in ballots in 2016, compared to 17% of the 623,000 Democrats registered in Miami-Dade today.
Many political analysts, both Democrats and Republicans, believe that’s a reflection of both the unprecedented government push to promote mail voting as a safer way to cast a ballot in a pandemic — and of President Donald Trump’s attacks on mail ballots.
In many summer primary elections, the early voting gap between Democrats and Republicans often doesn’t matter much beyond questions of voter enthusiasm and turnout predictions for turnout in the fall. Florida’s primaries are closed, meaning in most cases only Democrats can vote in Democratic primaries, and only Republicans can vote in Republican primaries.
But everyone can participate in non-partisan races, such as the county mayor’s election, which will head to a runoff in November if no candidate earns at least 50% of the vote. And this year, the mayor’s race features four competitive candidates, two of whom are running effectively partisan campaigns. County Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava is appealing to Democrats, and County Commissioner Esteban “Steve” Bovo is messaging to Republicans. Alex Penelas, a Democrat who was the county’s mayor between 1996 and 2004, has run as more of a moderate. And County Commissioner Xavier Suarez is registered without party affiliation.
Bovo may need Republicans to have a strong showing on Election Day to make a November runoff. His political consultant, David Custin, said the campaign is “cautiously optimistic” Republicans will show up in healthy numbers Tuesday, and that the massive number of early votes by Democrats will lead to fewer votes by Democrats on Election Day.
“Either there’s going to be a Democratic turnout in Miami-Dade for this primary of Biblical proportions,” said Custin, repeating a point made to him by a Florida pollster. “Or all it is is basically a COVID shift where the Democratic turnout is earlier and predominately by mail and the Republicans have basically, for lack of a better term, heeded the president’s call to be wary of mail-in voting.”
Democratic voters could be motivated by the mere fact there are two Democrats on the ballot, both of whom have spent millions of dollars on advertising and turnout operations. The last time the county elected a mayor, no Democrat was in the running.
In 2016, incumbent Carlos Gimenez faced a challenge from a fellow Republican. That August, Republicans cast 39% of the primary vote, with Democrats ahead at 45% and independents at 15%. So far this August, Democrats have cast about 48% of ballots — either by mail or in person — and Republicans 33%.
Independents are also voting ahead of their 2016 pace, casting 19% of all ballots through Sunday morning, which some observers credited to Levine Cava’s efforts to reach new and low-propensity voters.
Republicans, though, had been shifting back toward Election Day voting before the coronavirus pandemic, and they are showing up to early voting centers in high numbers this summer, pulling ahead of Democrats in ballots cast in-person heading into the final day of early voting. That fact has Democratic and Republican consultants predicting a conservative-leaning Election Day and adding intrigue to the question of how many people will show up to vote on Tuesday.
“Even if Election Day is a complete bust where you only see 40,000 people vote, it’s still remarkable” turnout for the August primary, said Christian Ulvert, who is advising Levine Cava’s campaign.
White, the Miami-Dade supervisor of elections, said she’s preparing for as many as 100,000 voters to show up Tuesday.
“Right now, where I’m sitting as a planner,” she said, “I have to assume it will be high.”
This story was originally published August 16, 2020 at 5:31 PM.
