MIAMI — Election Day dawned in the nation’s biggest battleground state with Florida Democrats out-voting Republicans by about 90,000 early ballots cast before the polls opened Tuesday — a potentially big, but not insurmountable lead, that could help Hillary Clinton win the White House.
On a percentage basis, the Democratic advantage over Republicans was small as of Tuesday morning — 1.4 percentage points of the 6.5 million in-person early and mail-in absentee ballots.
Though the votes won’t be tallied until Tuesday night, party registration strongly correlates with support for the top-of-the-ticket candidates. So the early vote totals help gauge the relative campaign strengths of Clinton and Donald Trump heading into Election Day.
Still, about 22 percent of the early and absentee votes were made by independents, whose preference is almost impossible to divine from the shifting public-opinion polls.
Public-opinion surveys show a tight race, with a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday that had Clinton ahead of Trump by 46-45 percent, a statistical tie...
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http://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2016/11/florida-democrats-hold-90-000-early-vote-lead-will-it-carry-clinton-to-the-white-house-107192