US election 2020: Florida once again has both sides guessing in home stretch
- Early voting starts in pivotal state Florida
- State is largest prize, with 29 Electoral College votes
In this must-win state for US President Donald Trump, lines snaked for blocks on the first day of early voting, long-standing traditions were upended, and Senator Kamala Harris encouraged voters at a drive-in rally to blare horns.
Both campaigns watched nervously: once again, Florida goes into the final weeks of a presidential campaign as an anxiety-driving toss-up.
Voters seemed as anxious as the campaigns on Monday. Some fretted that Joe Biden would import socialism, others worried Trump would fail to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, and still others predicted that violence would erupt in the streets if the election results are contested.
The state is critical for reasons both practical and psychological: without its 29 electoral votes, Trump would have tremendous difficulty finding a path to victory. And because the state processes its mail-in and early ballots in advance and counts them quickly, Florida’s near-final results likely will be known on election night, long before slower states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.
As in other states so far this year, voting seems headed for potential records. Even before early voting began Monday in 50 of the state’s counties, more than 2.5 million Floridians had voted by mail, representing more than a quarter of the total votes cast four years ago.
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Trump vs Biden: The 2020 US presidential election
Registered Democrats have cast nearly a half million more of those ballots than Republicans, according to figures compiled by Unite the Country, a pro-Biden super PAC, and Democratic data firm Hawkfish.