Florida vote-by-mail hits record 2.5M requests, Republicans in lead
More people are seeking or casting early ballots in the critical states of Florida and North Carolina than at this point in 2012, as early voting shows signs of surging nationwide. Florida doesn’t start absentee balloting until Tuesday, but already a record 2.5 million voters have requested ballots. Republicans are ahead in ballot requests, 43 percent to 38 percent. That’s a much narrower gap than in 2008, the most recent in which comparable data was available. At that time, the…