If early voting is any indication, Brevard County and Florida look set to hit a new benchmark for midterm elections turnout: a record number of people locally and statewide already have voted this election season.

In Brevard County, more than 39 percent of all eligible voters have cast ballots, either through early in-person voting or mail-in ballots ahead of Tuesday's midterm election, according to data complied by the Brevard County Supervisor of Elections Office.

"I think it's going to be a record turnout," Supervisor of Elections Lori Scott said. "It's not just early voting. I think our entire turnout is going to be higher this election," possibly surpassing 65 percent of eligible voters.

Across Florida, nearly 5.1 million in-person and vote-by-mail ballots have been cast so far, beating the 2014 record by 2 million votes.

More:Nearly 5.1 million Floridians have voted already in a record midterm election

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Early and vote-by-mail ballot voting in Florida shows a small Democratic advantage of more than 20,000 votes. But there also was a larger surge of older, white voters who typically vote Republican that could counter the smaller increase of younger voters spurred in part by the Parkland school shooting.

Pundits have been predicting that the political polarization in the country and division over the Trump presidency were going to drive their party members to the 2018 midterms in huge numbers.

In Brevard, along party lines, 44.15 percent of eligible Republican voters and 42.88 percent of eligible Democrats voted during early voting as of 1 p.m. Monday. Those numbers are significantly higher than early voting turnout in the 2014 midterm election — the last comparable election — when 33.32 percent of Republicans and 27.92 percent of Democrats turned out early.

The impact by so-called independents — "no party affiliation" voters and those registered in a minor political party — was nowhere near as impressive: 27.48 percent voted early this year, slightly less than the 28.07 percent who voted early in 2014.

Brevard Democratic Executive Committee Chair Stacey Patel said she is optimistic about the Democrats making gains this year.

"Democrats have a real shot at winning key races across Brevard — and across the state — if Democrats and nonpartisan voters turn out at the polls on Tuesday to support our platform of protecting our water and environment, health care for our families, public education for our kids, and Medicare and Social Security for our seniors," Patel said.

Brevard County Republican Executive Committee Vice Chairman Nick Tomboulides disagrees. He said that while "it looks as if the 'blue wave' has materialized in Brevard County," considering the increase in early voter turnout by Democrats, "it has been exceeded by the 'red wave' " turnout of Republican voters.

Brevard is a red county to begin with — having 46,985 more registered Republicans than registered Democrats eligible to vote in this election. Thus, the 44 percent turnout of Republicans translates into about a 22,000 lead in the number of early voters, according to the Elections Office.

"I think what's most clear is that there is elevated turnout across the board," said Kathryn Rudloff, executive director of the Business Voice Political Committee.

More:Candidates for Brevard School Board Districts 1,2 and 5

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Scott said she believes the surge in turnout is the result of a passionate and engaged electorate. She also notes that Brevard, given its older demographic, is usually among counties with higher turnout.

Rudloff said a difference she is seeing this year, though, is that there are more competitive races.

That's partly because Democrats are fielding a nearly full slate of candidates in 2018, which has not always been the case. Additionally, some races have no incumbent, making them more competitive.

Among the races Rudloff is watching are: Florida Senate District 14 (Republican Tommy Wright vs. Democrat Mel Martin); Florida House District 53 (Republican Randy Fine vs. Democrat Phil Moore) and Brevard County Commission District 2 (Republican Bryan Lober vs. Democrat Victoria Mitchner).

There is no incumbent in School Board District 2, which comes down to Charles Parker and Cheryl McDougall; in County Commission District 2 where Republican Jim Barfield did not seek re-election; and in Florida Senate District 14, since Republican Sen. Dorothy Hukill, the incumbent, died last month.

In House District 53, Fine is the incumbent, but the district is more evenly split between Republicans and Democrats than other legislative districts in Brevard.

The no-party affiliation voters — who have not voted early as much as the Republicans or Democrats have — also could by the end of the day Tuesday turn out to play a bigger role in the outcome of the elections. More than half of the increase in voter registration in Brevard in the last two years have been NPAs.

Other factors could be how many Democratic and Republican voters split their ticket to vote for the other party's candidates, as well as how many voters leave ballots blank in some races because they do not support any of the candidates running in them.

Brevard Democratic Party leader Patel said Democratic officials have been hearing anecdotes of independent voters and "many" moderate Republicans voting for Democrats this time around.

"It’s going to come down to the wire, and is entirely dependent on whether Brevard Democrats get to the polls on Tuesday, and whether nonpartisan voters break substantively for our candidates," she said.

Patel has been operating on the belief that by running more candidates in local races, Democrats will attract more local party votes, which in turn could have a significant impact on statewide races. Small margins will be important, she said.

"The last governor’s races was lost by about 1 percent," Patel said. "Our strategy has always been to improve statewide margins by turning out Democrats at the polls in Brevard."

Tomboulides said he doesn't see the Democrats making major gains in Brevard. He contends that local Democratic Party leadership and some of its candidates have more "California-style progressive policies" than the typical local Democratic voters, who he described as "more centrist," would favor.

"They've miscalculated what Brevard voters want," Tomboulides said.

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Nationwide, this particular election has drawn a large number of women, minorities and young voters to the polls.

Registered voters under 29 years old amount to less than 8 percent of the early voting, which is less than their share of 13 percent of all registered voters. But this year's total includes more than 220,000 younger voters who sat out the 2014 election.

"I'm only 26 years old, so I've not gotten the opportunity to vote much, but this election, I was like, you know what, I have to get out and vote," said Shay Cotton, who was voting Saturday at Wickham Park in Melbourne.

"When I was in school, the only ones that mattered were the presidential elections, and we didn't really learn about the midterms. Now that I see how important they are, I had to make it a priority to get here and vote," she said.

Early voting has become more popular among older voters who normally come out on Election Day.

Bob Ferraris usually votes on the day of the election, but this year he figured, "I knew who I was going to vote for, so I said I might as well go vote right now."



"I believe there's more early voters this year than anybody expected," Ferraris said, after voting at the Wickham Park site. "The interest this year seems to be greater than it has been in who's running this time. People have their minds made up and they want to vote."

Midterm elections usually attract lower turnout than presidential contests, and when it comes to early voting, that remains true this year in Florida.

In the 2016 presidential election, 6.6 million Floridians voted early or by mail in the battleground state, compared to the more than 5 million early votes cast this year. Historically, midterm voters tend to push back against the party of the president in power.

Locally, 2016's presidential election garnered 51 percent early voter turnout and 78 percent total turnout.

This midterm, Scott said, is on track to break 2002's midterm turnout record, 62 percent. That election came midway through George W. Bush's first term as president, when Jeb Bush was on the ballot for governor.

Ana Ceballos of the Naples Daily News contributed to this report.

Contact Berman at 321-242-3649 or dberman@floridatoday.com.

Twitter: @bydaveberman

Facebook: /dave.berman.54

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