Polls show close races ahead of Election Day

713 here on your Monday morning on Good Day Orlando and our U Decide coverage. We are now less than 24 hours away from the polls opening up on Election Day and the latest polling numbers show a lot of close races. This new poll from Stetson University shows that the Republicans still leading in both the governor and the Senate race. Donald leads Jolly, 51-45%. Ashley Moody leads Nixon, 49-45%. Meanwhile, more than 5 million Floridians have already cast their ballots. I want to bring in independent political analyst Rich Rubino. Rich, you've got some numbers that just came in right here. So early voting Republicans lead with 40% of the votes cast. Democrats about 38%. Does that surprise you more Republicans turned out early? A little bit. I think that the national trend is certainly showing that Democrats have an advantage. If you look at some of the places, whether it's Kansas that hasn't elected a Democrat since 1932, polls are showing the incumbent down to Hamilton. Obviously, Florida is a little bit different. In Florida's case, they haven't elected a Democratic governor since Lawton Chiles in 1994. On the Senate side. On the Senate side, you have an interesting race because this general strategy of Ashley Moody has been to try to portray her opponent as a radical, and we'll see if that works. You know, Rich, I'm also seeing in a lot of places, you know, it's again, this is not exit pollings, but people who have voted, so they say how they voted. Upwards of 25% of Republicans say they cast their ballot for someone other than a Republican in some districts. I think that goes along with what we've been talking about. President Trump is kind of alienating some Republicans. He's showing up in the early voting here. Yes, absolutely. Particularly a lot of young male voters that had voted for him in the last presidential election. You know, it's interesting. There were three states that voted. There were 25 states that voted all three times for Donald Trump. And it'd be very interesting to see what happens here. There really is a backlash toward President Trump. We saw this historically. I mean, going back to Harry Truman in 1950, Ronald Reagan in 1986, George W. Bush certainly in 2006, which I think that this is actually... Shaping up to mirror a little bit of that election where the Republicans lost about 31 seats. And the next day, George W. Bush said it was essentially some sort of a thumping. But it is interesting to see right now most of the swing states, Florida aside, but swing states, whether in terms of the Senate race, whether it's Maine, whether it's Kansas, whether it's even Texas and Texas, also the gubernatorial race are showing the Democrats actually have a slight lead right now. I think part of that is there are a lot of disaffected Republicans now, Rich, I I want to mention this because I know the emails are coming, so I'm going to just throw it out there already. We do know the Republicans often don't answer the polls accurately or honestly because they think it's invasive. We've seen that in poll after poll. So when you discount President Trump's influence, sometimes we undercount that. We know that by now, and we could see that again, Rich. Absolutely. There's always that kind of hidden, there's something hidden in polls in terms of people not wanting to tell pollsters what they're thinking. Potentially you're right, potentially not answering the polls. We've certainly seen this historically. There used to be what's called the Wilder effect, meaning that Doug Wilder was running for governor, or rather the Bradley effect. Tom Bradley was running for governor of California back in 1982, and the polls showed that he was going to win. But then in the actuality, he ended up losing, and a lot of people thought perhaps that was It's because a lot of people couldn't vote for an African-American. And as governor, whether that's true or not, we don't know. But there's always that hidden factor here. So what are you going to be looking for tonight as we see some of these early voting come in and into tomorrow? What numbers are you looking for in particular is going to say, wow, OK, that's where we're heading here? I'm looking very much at Texas. I'm looking at the gubernatorial election and the Senate election. Texas has not elected a Democratic governor since Ann Richards back in 1990. Greg Abbott is running for an unprecedented fourth term. It'd be very interesting to see what's going on there. And I'm looking at some of the kind of outlier races like Mississippi Senate race. Bill Clinton, the fact that the Democrats sent Bill Clinton to campaign for the Democratic nominee, Scott Colon, shows that they believe they're potentially within striking distance of having an upset in Mississippi. So I'd be definitely watching for that. Also, the Arkansas Senate race is kind of an outlier race as well for Democrats. If Arkansas, if they can get if they can get within three or four points in Arkansas in that Senate race, I think that really foretells the fact that the Democrats are going to have a very good night. And then obviously, I'm watching the obvious races. I'm watching Michigan. I'm watching Maine. I'm certainly watching South Carolina with Darlene Graham. They're just really a litany of races around the country. And it's going to see whether it's going to be a Republican blue wave or if Republicans can potentially can potentially do do better, do better than expected. So that's what I'm watching. All right, Rich. Well, we've been in this game long enough to know that we have no idea what's really going to happen. Got to at this point. Maybe we'll see how the polls are, if they're close this time. So Rich, always good to see you. Good to see our political analyst, Rich Urbino. Great to have you on this Monday morning, Rich. Thank you so much.