Florida Primary Election Day: Polls Open Statewide as Voters Pick November Nominees

Florida voters go to the polls Tuesday in a midterm primary that will set the November ballot for governor, a United States Senate seat, all 28 congressional districts and hundreds of legislative, county and judicial contests. Polling places across the state's 67 counties open at 7 a.m. local time and close at 7 p.m., and any voter standing in line at closing time is entitled to cast a ballot.

The stakes are unusually high for a primary. Governor Ron DeSantis is term limited and cannot seek a third consecutive term, which means Florida will elect a new chief executive for the first time since 2018. Voters are also choosing nominees in a special election for the United States Senate seat that became vacant when Marco Rubio left the chamber to serve as Secretary of State, a seat currently held by an appointee rather than an elected senator.

Florida runs a closed primary system. Registered Republicans receive a Republican ballot, registered Democrats receive a Democratic ballot, and voters registered without party affiliation are generally limited to nonpartisan contests such as judicial races, school board seats and local referenda. That structure has again put a spotlight on the roughly one in four Florida voters who are not registered with either major party.

What is on the ballot

The marquee contest is the race for governor. On the Republican side, the field includes U.S. Representative Byron Donalds, who has led public polling of GOP primary voters for months, alongside Casey Askar, David Burck, Michael Carbonara, Richard Evans, Terri Hasdorff and Belinda Keiser. On the Democratic side, former Republican congressman David Jolly, who changed his registration to Democrat, has been the most visible candidate, with Pia Dandiya and Kaysia Earley also seeking the nomination.

The United States Senate special election primary is the second headline race. Ashley Moody, appointed to the seat by Governor DeSantis, is seeking the Republican nomination against Chris Gleason, Neelam Taneja Perry and Ernie Rivera. Democrats are running their own contested primary for the same seat. Because the seat was filled by appointment rather than by election, the winner in November will serve the balance of the term rather than a full six years.

Below the statewide races, Florida is running primaries in all 28 congressional districts. Several are effectively open seats. In Southwest Florida, a large Republican field is competing for the seat Donalds is vacating to run for governor. In Central Florida, Representative Maxwell Frost is on the Democratic primary ballot in the 10th District. State House and state Senate primaries are on the ballot as well, along with county commission seats, school board races, sheriff and property appraiser contests, and a long list of judicial elections.

Turnout before Election Day

A substantial share of the electorate has already voted. State figures reported before the close of early voting showed more than 1.8 million ballots cast statewide through the weekend, split between vote by mail and in person early voting. Mail ballots accounted for the overwhelming majority of that total, with in person early voting making up a much smaller share.

The partisan composition of those early ballots has been the subject of intense scrutiny by both parties. Reports on the pre Election Day numbers indicated Democrats had cast more total ballots, driven by their traditional advantage in vote by mail, while Republicans held the edge in in person early voting and led in overall turnout by a margin reported in the tens of thousands. Those figures describe who has voted, not how they voted, and Florida does not report results until after polls close.

Mandatory early voting ran August 8 through August 15, with some counties offering additional days at the discretion of their supervisors of elections. The deadline to request a vote by mail ballot passed on August 6. Voters who still hold an unreturned mail ballot cannot mail it Tuesday and expect it to count, because Florida requires mail ballots to be received by the supervisor of elections by 7 p.m. on Election Day, not merely postmarked by then.

How to vote on Tuesday

Voters casting a ballot in person Tuesday must go to their assigned precinct, not to any early voting site. Precinct assignments are printed on voter information cards and are available through county supervisor of elections offices. Unlike early voting, which allows voting at any site within a county, Election Day voting in Florida is precinct based.

Florida requires photo and signature identification at the polls. Acceptable forms include a Florida driver license, a Florida identification card issued by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, a United States passport, a military identification, a student identification and several other options listed in state law. A voter whose identification does not include a signature may be asked to present a second form of identification that does.

Voters who arrive without acceptable identification are entitled to cast a provisional ballot. Those ballots are set aside and reviewed by the county canvassing board, which compares the signature on the provisional ballot envelope with the signature on file in the voter's registration record. Voters who returned a vote by mail ballot with a signature problem may still be able to correct it through the cure affidavit process, which counties administer under deadlines set in state law.

What voters without party affiliation can do

Florida's closed primary rule limits participation for the state's large bloc of unaffiliated voters, and that limitation has drawn renewed attention this cycle. Voters registered without party affiliation still receive a ballot Tuesday, but it contains only the contests open to all voters: nonpartisan judicial races, school board seats, special district elections and any local ballot questions on the ballot in their jurisdiction.

There is one narrow exception written into the Florida Constitution. When all candidates for an office are members of the same party and the winner of the primary will face no opposition in the general election, the primary becomes a universal primary and every registered voter may participate. That provision is routinely neutralized by the entry of a write in candidate, whose presence on the ballot technically creates general election opposition and closes the primary to members of that party only.

Policy analysts and election reform groups in Florida have pointed to that write in provision as one of the clearest examples of how election law shapes who can participate. Supporters of the current structure argue that party primaries are properly reserved for party members, while critics argue that the write in exception nullifies a constitutional guarantee voters approved. Any change would require action by the Legislature or a constitutional amendment.

Local impact across the state

The primary matters differently depending on where a voter lives. In heavily Republican counties in North Florida and Southwest Florida, and in heavily Democratic areas of South Florida, the primary is frequently the decisive contest for local offices, because the winner faces only nominal opposition in November. For those voters, Tuesday's ballot is the general election in everything but name.

In Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, the congressional and legislative primaries carry particular weight given the density of open and competitive seats. In the Tampa Bay region, county commission and school board contests share the ballot with legislative primaries. In Central Florida, the fast growing suburban counties around Orlando are again a focal point for both parties as they test general election messaging.

School board races deserve particular attention because they appear on every voter's ballot regardless of party registration. These contests are formally nonpartisan in Florida, though both parties have invested heavily in them in recent cycles. Under state law, a school board candidate who receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary wins outright, and only races where no candidate clears that threshold advance to a November runoff.

When results will be available

Florida counties begin reporting results after 7 p.m. Eastern, when the last polls close in the Eastern time zone. Counties in the Central time zone portion of the Panhandle close at 7 p.m. Central, an hour later, and statewide totals are not considered complete until those counties report. The Florida Department of State publishes unofficial returns on its election night reporting system as counties transmit them.

Early results typically reflect vote by mail and early voting ballots, which counties are permitted to begin canvassing before Election Day. Election Day precinct results generally follow, and the composition of the vote can shift noticeably as those precinct reports arrive. Unofficial returns are not final. County canvassing boards conduct official canvasses, review provisional ballots and complete required audits in the days that follow.

Florida law provides for automatic recounts in close contests. A machine recount is triggered when the unofficial margin is one half of one percent or less, and a manual recount of overvotes and undervotes follows when the margin after the machine recount is one quarter of one percent or less. Those thresholds apply to primaries as well as general elections.

Judicial races share the ballot

Every Florida voter, regardless of party registration, receives judicial contests on Tuesday's ballot. Circuit judges and county judges are elected in nonpartisan races, and a candidate who receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary wins outright without advancing to November.

Judicial elections in Florida operate under canons that restrict what candidates may say. Judicial candidates may not make statements that commit them on issues likely to come before the court, and they may not personally solicit campaign contributions. Those constraints make judicial races unusually low information contests, and voter drop off in them is consistently high.

The Florida Bar publishes information about judicial candidates, and county bar associations in several jurisdictions conduct judicial polls of their members. Those resources are the practical route to informed voting in races where the candidates cannot campaign on positions.

Turnout patterns in Florida primaries

Florida primary turnout runs far below general election turnout, typically by a wide margin. Midterm primaries draw an electorate that skews older, more partisan and more consistently engaged than the November electorate, which is why primary results frequently diverge from general election outcomes in the same jurisdiction.

That composition matters for local offices decided at the primary stage. In counties where one party dominates, a small and unrepresentative slice of the total electorate effectively selects sheriffs, property appraisers, clerks of court and county commissioners.

The pre Election Day figures suggest a similar pattern this cycle, with more than 1.8 million ballots cast before Tuesday out of a registered voter population many times that size. Election Day turnout will determine the final total, and Florida has trended toward a majority of votes being cast before Election Day rather than at the precinct.

What is next

The winners Tuesday advance to the general election on November 3, 2026. That ballot will include the governor's race, the United States Senate special election, all 28 congressional seats, half the state Senate, the entire state House, and any constitutional amendments certified for the ballot.

Counties will spend the remainder of the week completing their official canvasses. Candidates in tight races will watch provisional and cured mail ballot totals, which can move margins in low turnout primaries where a few hundred votes decide an outcome. Certification deadlines set in state law govern when county results become official and when statewide certification follows.

For voters, the practical takeaway Tuesday is straightforward. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., precinct assignment matters, photo and signature identification is required, and unreturned mail ballots must be delivered to a supervisor of elections office or designated drop location by 7 p.m. rather than dropped in a mailbox.