DeSantis warns of Republicans underperforming at the polls

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Republicans are underperforming in Polk County early voting, Gov. Ron DeSantis warned this week, though he said the turnout appeared to improve Friday.

As of Friday morning, 17,307 people had voted in Polk County, which is among the 10 most populous counties in the state. A total of 5,877 registered Republicans had cast ballots versus 6,899 registered Democrats.

Another 499 voters listed under “other” had cast ballots in Polk, along with 4,032 voters with no party affiliation, according to data from the Florida Division of Elections.

“Republicans are underperforming in Polk County,” DeSantis said on X Thursday. “We have a voter registration advantage of 60,000 in the county and it went R+30 four years ago.”

On Friday afternoon, the governor noted Republicans have improved in Polk but “need to sustain it.”

In Miami-Dade, the state’s most populous county, more voters with no party affiliation than registered Republicans have cast ballots thus far. Of the 88,043 people who have voted, 26,169 have no party affiliation compared to the 24,439 registered Republicans who have cast ballots. There are 35,471 registered Democrats who have already voted in Miami-Dade.

The same trend is true in Broward County where Democrats are also vastly ahead of Republicans in terms of ballots cast. There are 12,941 ballots cast by registered Democrats there compared to 5,037 by registered Republicans. There are 5,883 ballots cast by voters with no party affiliation.

Among the 10 most populous counties in Florida, registered Republicans lead in ballots cast in only one. In Lee County, 15,112 registered Republicans have cast ballots versus 9,258 registered Democrats.

However, statewide, more registered Republicans have cast ballots so far than registered Democrats.

Over 1.7 million registered Republicans have voted versus 1.6 million registered Democrats. That’s in addition to the 794,273 ballots cast by voters with no party affiliation and 106,954 cast by voters listed under “other.”

Registered Republicans currently lead in ballots cast in Bay, Charlotte, Citrus, Clay, Collier, Hernando, Indian River, Martin, Manatee and Okaloosa, among other counties.

Over 4.2 million Floridians had cast ballots as of Friday morning. That number represents over 1.7 million vote-by-mail ballots and more than 2.5 million people who had voted in person.