Florida, a must-win state for Trump, seen as a toss-up

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Floridians turned out in huge numbers at the polls Tuesday to weigh in on the presidential race with 29 Electoral College votes on the line that are vital for President Donald Trump’s reelection chances. The high turnout comes after a record-breaking 9 million ballots were cast before Election Day.

Once again, Florida was considered a toss-up. Polls have shown the Republican incumbent and Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden virtually tied. And while Democrats dominated the record vote-by-mail ballots, Republicans closed the gap with early in-person voting and were expected to turn out in higher numbers on Election Day.

“It’s going to be close,” said Michael Binder, who runs the University of North Florida Public Opinion Research Lab. He said the margin of victory would likely be within 1 percentage point. “Two percent is a blowout of epic proportions in the state of Florida,” he said.

The number of early voters, including those who mailed in their ballots, signaled high turnout among the state’s 14.4 million registered voters. Statewide, turnout exceeded 76%, a couple percentage points higher than four years ago.

The turnout was especially high in Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale, exceeding 75% — about 5 percentage points more than four years ago. In Hillsborough County, turnout also was running 5 points ahead of 2016. GOP-friendly Sumter County, which includes The Villages, was running more than 4% ahead of turnout four years ago.

In Miami-Dade, the state's most populous region, turnout was also heavy, running nearly 2 percentage points ahead of 2016.

The heavier turnout did not necessarily translate to Democratic votes, however. Two Miami-area Republicans defeated a pair of Democratic incumbents for seats in the U.S. House. Florida now has 14 Republicans and 13 Democrats in the U.S. House — and that majority will increase by two.

Voters also narrowly approved a ballot measure that will gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, one of six ballot measures that were before them.

The Trump-Biden contest is the main event, and both campaigns sought to encourage turnout among their Black and Hispanic supporters.

In Fort Lauderdale, Amarui Rice, a 23-year-old nurse and Biden voter, said Trump makes people “feel it's OK to be racist.”

“We get pulled over and we are scared. We breathe and we are scared. It’s exhausting,” he said. “We need to protect our people. The violence, the hatred, the amount of animosity toward us.”

Nia Casado, who works at a coronavirus testing facility, said she voted for Biden onTuesday because Trump is dividing the nation.

“Having Trump in office in general is just dividing more people. We need to get him out if we want to come together,” said Casado, 24.

In St. Petersburg, attorney Michele Peters said during early voting Friday that she was choosing Biden, in part because of Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and what she said was his acting “like this doesn’t even exist.”

“We need a person at the helm who is going to lead with our scientists — lead and say we have this under control,” Peters said.

But Mervat Harry, 57, of Tarpon Springs, said Trump will do more to improve the economy during the pandemic, and based on her experience living in Egypt and Sudan, she worries the nation would move toward socialism under Biden.

“I know the meaning of socialism,” the former substitute teacher said.

Luisa Cabrera, a 63-year-old retired travel agent who was born in Cuba, voted for Trump on Tuesday in the Cuban-American stronghold of Hialeah.

“He is direct. He is a straight shooter,” Cabrera said. “He has done a good job with the economy.”

Keith Montgomery said he cast a ballot for Donald Trump. The 53-year-old Clearwater man also voted for Trump in 2016.

“I voted Republican,” Montgomery said. “I don’t like defunding the police at all. I think that’s crazy, and anybody who suggested that is crazy.”

Florida set the standard for close presidential elections in 2000, when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by 537 votes out of nearly 6 million cast. It took five weeks and a U.S. Supreme Court order halting Florida's messy recount to decide the presidency.

Trump carried Florida four years ago by a thin margin, beating Hillary Clinton by 1.2 percentage points and earning only 49% of the vote. In 2012, President Barack Obama carried Florida over Mitt Romney by less than a percentage point. Obama beat John McCain by 2.8 percentage points in 2008.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and Biden and running mate Sen. Kamala Harris have made multiple campaign stops in Florida in the final weeks of the election, as have Trump’s family and Obama.

In part because of the coronavirus pandemic, Florida already broke a record for ballots cast by mail with more than 4.6 million counted as of Monday morning. That compares with 2.7 million votes by mail in the 2016 election.

In the Legislature, Republicans were hoping to retain their majorities in both chambers of the Legislature. They now outnumber Democrats 71-45 in the House, with four vacant seats split between the parties during the last session. In the state Senate, Republicans outnumber Democrats 23-17.

That means Democrats have a near-zero chance of regaining control of the House, and only a slight chance of regaining control of the Senate, where they'd have to defend all their seats and flip four Republican-held seats. Democrats haven't controlled the state Senate since 1992.

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AP writers Tamara Lush in St. Petersburg, Kelli Kennedy in Fort Lauderdale, Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami and Bobby Caina Calvan in Tallahassee contributed to this report.

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Find AP’s full election coverage at APNews.com/Election2020.