This is not what Florida Democrats wanted to read after the first weekend of early voting:

South Florida in-person early voting turnout might have been relatively lighter than expected this weekend, but Democrats for the first time this election still topped Republicans in pre-Election Day ballot casting at the polls in the entire state. But, thanks to strong vote-by-mail absentee ballot returns, Republicans still lead Democrats in overall early voting: 138,572 of the more than 1.8 million ballots cast as of this morning. In relative terms, the GOP is up 7.6 percentage points.

This is a slight improvement for Democrats over an earlier report that suggested it was time to panic:

Some Democrats are starting to panic. It’s an understandable feeling. Mid-term election turnout in the big three urban counties is historically abysmal, which is a major reason why Republicans hold every statewide elected office but one. This is a warning sign for Democrat Charlie Crist. “This is horrible,” one South Florida consultant told me.

We’ve heard a lot about Democrats’ various get-out-the-vote efforts. In 2012, they indisputably kicked Republicans’ tails up and down the block in terms of bringing their base voters out. But so far in quite a few states, the early-vote turnout for them ranges from barely okay to disastrous. We’re seeing it in places like Nevada, with no big statewide race, and in places like Florida, where you would figure a hard-fought, closely matched governor’s race would stir some interest, if not excitement. Then again, maybe this reflects a factor unique to the Sunshine State; perhaps Florida Democrats can’t get all that excited about voting for Charlie Crist, since they spent much of the past decade voting against him when he was a Republican.