Florida Early Voting: More Than 4.2 Million Ballots Cast as the Final Day Arrives
More than 4.2 million Floridians — about 31 percent of the state's registered voters — have already cast ballots, with registered Republicans narrowly leading the early tally and the governor's race polling inside a few points.
Florida's early vote is already enormous, and Saturday is its last day. More than 4.2 million Floridians have cast ballots in the 2026 midterm election — approximately 31 percent of the state's 13.7 million registered voters — with about 2.5 million voting in person during early voting and another 1.8 million returning vote-by-mail ballots, according to the tally reported this run. Florida's mandatory early voting period runs through Saturday, October 31 — in Lee County, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at any of the county's 12 sites — ahead of Election Day on Tuesday, November 3.
The partisan shape of the early vote is close. The latest tally from the University of Florida Election Lab shows registered Republicans leading early voting with 40.4 percent of ballots cast, registered Democrats at 38.6 percent, and no-party or minor-party voters casting the remaining 21.1 percent — a narrow GOP edge in ballots despite a Republican registration advantage of approximately 1.5 million voters statewide. Party registration shows who has voted, not how they voted.
At the top of the ballot, the governor's race remains tight in the final weekend: a recent St. Pete Polls survey of 916 likely voters, with a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points, found Republican Byron Donalds leading Democrat David Jolly 48 percent to 46 percent, and a New York Times and Siena College poll released Thursday showed Donalds with a four-point advantage. The US Senate race, between Republican Sen. Ashley Moody and Democrat Angie Nixon, is the other statewide contest drawing attention into the final days.
