We’re now less than 45 days until the election, so it shouldn’t surprise you that we’re talking about the state of Florida. The Sunshine State has arguably been the swingiest of the swing states over the last 25 years.
This year, however, Florida looks to take on added importance. The outcome in Florida could help determine whether Election Night turns into Election Week or even potentially Election Month.
A record number of voters are expected to vote by absentee or mail this year. About half of Democratic voters nationwide say they’ll be voting by mail, up from about a quarter in 2016. Less than 25% of Republicans say they’ll cast a ballot by mail.
This wide gap is no doubt driven in part by President Donald Trump’s largely false rhetoric about voting by mail.
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In Florida, this gap in voting style won’t make much of a difference in terms of when we know the winner. All ballots, with just a few exceptions, must be received at poll closing time by the county boards of elections. Those ballots are usually counted before those cast on Election Day.
The state also has a long history of voting by mail. About 30% of the vote in 2016 was cast by mail.
As long as the vote is not exceedingly tight in Florida, we’ll have a good indication of who has won the Sunshine State on Election Night.
If we know who has won in Florida, we’ll have a good idea of what to expect from the rest of the country. At this point, former Vice President Joe Biden holds a slim polling lead there.
As I’ve noted before, Florida has voted with the winner in every election since 1996 and all but two since 1924. In both those cases, it was Democrats who took the presidency without Florida.
This year, it’s pretty clear that Trump has very few paths to the White House without winning Florida. It’s possible, but it isn’t really realistic.
On the other hand, Biden has a number of ways to win without Florida. His easiest path (the states Hillary Clinton won in 2016 and Arizona, Michigan, Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district and Wisconsin) and his second easiest path (the Clinton states plus Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania) don’t rely on Florida.
That’s why statistical modeling from FiveThirtyEight and Jack Kersting indicate that Biden has a better than a 95% chance of winning the entire election if he wins in Florida. And even if he loses Florida, Biden still has about a 40% chance of winning the entire election.
Put another way, Biden’s very likely to win if he takes Florida. Even if we have to wait for the ballots to be counted in other states for Biden to officially get to 270 electoral votes, there’s only a minimal chance Trump takes the election.
If Biden loses Florida, we’ll likely have to see what happens in the Great Lake (Rust Belt) battlegrounds to have a good understanding of the ultimate outcome.
We could be waiting a long while for those Great Lake battleground state results to become clear.
Unlike Florida, the outcome in the Great Lake battlegrounds may not be known for days because of mail-in voting.
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As of right now, recent court rulings make it so that absentee ballots in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin can be counted even if they arrive after Election Day. (The exact number of days depends on the state.) The key is for them to be postmarked either the day before the election (Michigan) or by Election Day (Pennsylvania and Wisconsin).
Moreover, only Michigan has any real experience counting more than a relative handful of absentee ballots. Just about 5% of the 2016 vote was cast via absentee in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. All three states cannot begin to count absentee ballots until the day of the election, while Florida ballots can start to be processed weeks before election.
It’s easy to imagine Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin getting overwhelmed with what’s expected to be a crush of absentees.
Recent polls from Pennsylvania and Wisconsin show that around 30% voters say they’ll likely vote by absentee ballot. It will likely take these states time to count the absentee ballots.
The key for not knowing who has won on Election Night is that those absentee ballots, at this point, look far more likely to be Democratic than Republican votes. In all three states, polls indicate that Democrats are at least twice as likely to say as Republicans to say they’ll be casting an absentee ballot.
It’s conceivable that Trump leads in votes that are counted by Election Night in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Then Biden ultimately wins, as he chips away at that margin as more absentee votes are counted.
Remember, a vote is a vote no matter how it is cast or when exactly it is counted.
If Biden wins Florida, such counting in the Great Lake battlegrounds would likely be more of an academic exercise in terms of knowing who has won the election.
If Biden loses Florida, the eyes of the nation will watch as the Great Lake battleground ballots are counted.
