Blue Miami-Dade county in Florida flipped from Democrat to Republican in early and mail-in voting combined Thursday afternoon, according to the latest election results.
The live update at 2:32 p.m. Eastern showed Republicans across the state of Florida leading Democrats in terms of early and mail-in voting combined, seeing 44.20 percent for Republicans — or 1,382,165 votes — to the Democrats’ 35.54 percent, or 1,111,890 votes.
Across the state, Republicans have the clear lead in early in-person voting, 54.14 percent to the Democrat’s 26.99 percent — a difference of roughly 374,00 votes. Democrats have the edge on mail-in votes, 42.29 percent to the GOP’s 36.35 percent — a difference of about 103,000 votes.
Perhaps what is most surprising is the development in traditionally blue Miami-Dade, which flipped to red Thursday afternoon, counting both early votes and mail-ins. The 2:32 p.m. ET results showed Republicans with 114,195 total votes in the county compared to 114,113 for Democrats. Republicans have the +17.1 percent advantage on early in-person voting, while Democrats have a 13.2 percent edge on mail-in votes.
This development, for Miami-Dade is significant and follows the county flipping red in the 2020 election, going for both Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).
It also coincides with the reality that Republicans now have over one million more registered voters than Democrats in the Sunshine State. For the first time ever, in November 2021, registered Republicans outnumbered registered Democrats in the Sunshine State, and the figure has only continued to grow.
Trump took Florida in both 2016 and 2020, and it is not widely considered a true battleground state this election cycle due to both the dominance of Republicans and Trump.