Florida's Final Count Shows Democratic Turnout Up Sharply Since 2022, and Donalds's Edge Has Narrowed

Florida's final early voting numbers for 2026, published by the Division of Elections on November 2, 2026, show registered Democrats have already returned 172,593 more mail and early ballots than they did in the whole 2022 general election, while Republicans have returned almost exactly as many as they did then. Republicans still lead the count, by 133,177 ballots, but the lead is built on a Republican turnout that stood still while Democratic and unaffiliated turnout grew.

The governor market has moved the same way. Kalshi and Polymarket both had the Republican Party at 65% to win the governor's race on November 2, 2026, down from 71% on both venues on October 29 and 82% on Polymarket on October 23, which means the market still makes the Republican the favorite but by a much thinner margin than it did ten days ago. Byron Donalds, the Republican, and David Jolly, the Democrat, are the major-party nominees on the Division's list of qualified candidates, and Florida votes on Tuesday, November 3, 2026.

What the final early voting numbers say

The Division's statewide totals, compiled at 11:03 a.m. on November 2 from the county reports for activity through November 1, count 5,408,792 ballots already cast. Of those, 3,467,309 were cast at early-voting sites and 1,941,483 were returned by mail. By the party registration of the voters who cast them, Republicans account for 2,176,256 ballots, Democrats 2,043,079, voters with no party affiliation 1,050,687 and minor parties 138,770.

Those are counts of voters by registration, not votes for a candidate. A registered Republican can vote for Jolly and a registered Democrat for Donalds, and the 1,050,687 ballots from unaffiliated voters are the largest block the count cannot assign at all. What the count does settle is who has turned out, and early voting is over: the Division's reports note that daily early-vote reporting ends on the Monday after early voting closes, which is November 2.

Mail voting is not over. The same report lists 514,950 mail ballots sent out and not yet returned, 202,515 of them to Democrats and 172,326 to Republicans, and a voted ballot still counts if the county Supervisor of Elections receives it by 7 p.m. local time on November 3, regardless of postmark.

Democrats have passed their 2022 total, and Republicans have matched theirs

The comparison that matters is with the last governor's race. The Division's archived count for the 2022 general election, which runs through the end of that year's reporting and so includes mail ballots that arrived on Election Day, shows 5,059,413 mail and early ballots: 2,168,758 from Republicans, 1,870,486 from Democrats and 947,728 from unaffiliated voters, a Republican lead of 298,272.

Set against that final 2022 count, this year's count before Election Day is already larger in every group. Republicans are up 7,498 ballots. Democrats are up 172,593. Unaffiliated voters are up 102,959. Because the 2026 figures will still grow with the last mail ballots, all of those differences are floors, but the gap between them is the story: Democratic turnout has grown about 23 times as much as Republican turnout, and the Republican lead in returned ballots is less than half what it was four years ago.

The unaffiliated count deserves its own line. Voters registered with no party cast 1,050,687 mail and early ballots by November 1, more than in all of 2022, and they are the one group whose choice neither party's registration total can predict. A race in which nearly one ballot in five comes from an unaffiliated voter is a race where registration leads say less than they did when that share was smaller.

The way Floridians voted also changed. Republicans cast 1,497,472 ballots in person at early-voting sites this year against 1,167,529 in 2022, and returned 678,784 by mail against 1,001,229. Democrats cast 1,210,445 early against 675,629 and returned 832,634 by mail against 1,194,857. Both parties moved from mail to early voting, but the Democratic shift into early voting was larger by more than 200,000 ballots.

What the governor price is saying

A Republican price of 65% on both Kalshi and Polymarket on November 2, 2026 still makes Donalds the favorite, at roughly two chances in three, but it is 17 points below the 82% Polymarket showed on October 23, 2026. The Democratic Party was at 36% on both venues on November 2, against 27% on Polymarket and 30% on Kalshi on October 29. Trading has been heavy into the final day: Kalshi counted about 2.05 million contracts traded on the market in the 24 hours before the November 2 read.

The market treats the ballot count as a reason to expect a closer race than 2022's, not as a reason to expect a Democratic win. That reading fits the numbers. A Republican lead of 133,177 ballots among more than 5.4 million is real, but it is less than half the 2022 lead, and the growth behind the 2026 count is on the Democratic and unaffiliated side. The desk's earlier piece on the late-October slide tied the first part of the drop to a single two-point poll; the final count gives the rest of it a firmer basis.

The case against this read

The strongest case against the read is that the last polls do not show a tightening race. 270toWin's list of public polls has six surveys released between October 28 and November 2, from St. Pete Polls, Siena College, InsiderAdvantage, ActiVote, Stetson University and Targoz Market Research, and every one has Donalds ahead, by between two and seven points. On that view the market has followed turnout figures that cannot show how unaffiliated voters split, which means a 65% price on November 2, 2026 understates a lead that every pollster in the final week measured.

There is also a mechanical case. The early-vote count is silent on Election Day turnout, which the Division does not report until the polls close, and the 2022 comparison runs against a count that includes that year's late mail. A reader who holds that view would say the 7,498-ballot Republican gain over 2022 may be a difference of timing rather than a stall, and that Republican voters who have not yet voted can still change the comparison on November 3.

What would change it

The read rests on the turnout mix pointing to a narrower race than 2022's. This read is wrong if the election-night returns, which the Division's timeline says begin within 30 minutes of the polls closing on November 3 with every tabulated mail and early ballot, show Donalds ahead by more than the final polls' two-to-seven-point range. It would also be wrong the other way if Jolly leads the mail and early tabulation outright, since a Republican lead of 133,177 ballots by registration would then have hidden a crossover the market priced only in part.

• Election Day, November 3, 2026: polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time, and mail ballots must reach the county Supervisor of Elections by 7 p.m. local time.

• Election night: the first returns, including all tabulated mail and early ballots, are due within 30 minutes of the polls closing, then every 45 minutes.

• November 16, 2026: county official returns are due by noon.

• November 17, 2026: the Elections Canvassing Commission certifies the official returns by 8 a.m., and nothing before that is a certified result.

The live board on the Florida governor odds page carries both venues' prices through election night, and every Florida race is on the elections page.