Democrats See Hope In Numbers Beneath Florida Special Election Wins
Buried in the results of Tuesday’s special elections in Florida are numbers offering hope to Democrats both there and across the country: The winning candidates won far more votes than the number of Democrats who cast ballots, meaning they drew significant support from independents or even Republicans.
In the Palm Beach County state House district that includes President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, Democrat Emily Gregory received 17,113 votes, even though only 12,100 Democrats cast ballots, according to a HuffPost analysis of voter turnout data.
In Tampa Bay’s Hillsborough County state Senate district, Democrat Brian Nathan received 40,212 votes, considerably more than the 29,674 Democrats who voted in the election.
The math means that both Democrats must have dramatically overperformed with independent voters — known as “no party affiliation” in Florida — or pulled from Republicans, or a combination of both. In Nathan’s race, more than 25% of the votes he received came from independents and Republicans. In Gregory’s case, that figure was nearly 30%. In both races, thousands more registered Republicans cast ballots than Democrats.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/democrats-see-hope-numbers-beneath-231806352.html