Florida is looking extremely good.
Democrats finished with an overall early voting lead of about 4% in 2012. Currently the overall numbers are about even between Democrats and Republicans this year, with Republicans having a very slight lead. So Republicans are running about 4% ahead of 2012 numbers in a state Obama won by less than 1%.
If you drill down to the numbers for mail-in versus in-person voting, the Republican lead for mail-in votes is about the same as 2012 (about 3%). The big shift is in in-person early voting. Democrats won this category by over 9% in 2012 but are leading by only 2.7% now.
Another way to look at the early votes in Florida is to see where the turnout is higher or lower from 2012. I did some analysis by county and found that in 5 heavily Democrat counties (Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Orange, Leon) the total vote as a percentage of to overall early vote is down slightly from 2012. However, in 5 heavily Republican counties (Lee, Marion, Lake, Collier, Escambia) the total vote as a percentage of the overall early vote is significantly up from 2012. This points to higher Republican turnout for early voting than last time.
Any way you look at it, Trump appears to be doing very, very well in Florida so far, and most of the early voting is done at this point.
You hit the nail on the head there. Florida’s Election Day votes trend Republican. If Trump is holding Crooked Hillary to a draw there with the Early Vote (and keeping it somehow), he beats her in Florida.
I also think this “Hillary leads in NC” meme is a little tired and overstated. If Florida goes, so does NC. As far as I am concerned, Trump is one state away from victory right now and CO and NH and PA are all looking good.