Early voting has started for FL’s presidential primary election — but only GOP will be voting

Mitch Perry
·2 min read

South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary is Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. Polling places open at 7 a.m. for in-person voting. (Kate Brindley | New Hampshire Bulletin)

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Florida’s presidential primary preference election takes place next week —- though Democrats won’t be voting — and early voting for the March 19 contest began over the weekend throughout the state.

For those who might not know: There will be no presidential primary election for Democratic voters next week. That’s because the Florida Democratic Party chose only President Joe Biden on the ballot when it convened last fall, though other candidates were in the race. The issue led to a federal lawsuit, which was dismissed in federal court in January.

As to the GOP, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley dropped out of the Republican presidential race last week, and Donald Trump will essentially run unopposed in his quest to become the GOP presidential nominee for the third straight election cycle.

That said, there are six other candidates still on the GOP ballot: Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ryan L. Binkley, all of whom (other than Haley) dropped out of the race well before last week’s “Super Tuesday” slate of contests. But some voters will still cast their votes.

Florida is a closed primary state, so only Republicans registered as of February 20 can participate in the presidential primary election.

Meanwhile, some municipal elections are taking place next week in a handful of Florida counties. Municipal elections are nonpartisan in Florida, and thus any registered voter can participate. Voters in four cities in Orange County, 22 cities in Palm Beach and ten cities in Pinellas County will be holding elections on March 19, according to the Florida Division of Elections. There will also be two special district elections taking place that day in Sarasota County.

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