Florida's two top-ballot races are among the most important in next Tuesday's election — the Senate contest between Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson, and the gubernatorial contest between Republican former Rep. Ron DeSantis and Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum. Here's a look at who has been returning mail ballots and voting early in Florida as of today, compared to the final data from 2014:

As you can see, the overall picture looks slightly better for Democrats this time, but only slightly. Registered Republicans' share of the total mail and in-person early vote is about 0.3 percentage points lower, and registered Democrats' is about 0.5 percentage points higher.

The gap between the parties overall favors Republicans, but not by too much, and it's not that different from 2014. But note that in 2014, a historically unpopular Scott pulled an upset victory (by one point) over former Gov. Charlie Crist, while all of the other Republican statewide candidates won by more than ten points. So a "slightly worse than 2014" early turnout scenario, all other things being equal, would not a bad thing for the GOP if it holds. This time around, Scott is also a lot more popular than he was then.

On the other hand, the numbers have been getting just ever so slightly worse for Republicans each day. Then again, if there's anything to be learned from the apples-to-oranges comparison with the 2016 presidential race, registered Democrats' total share of the mail and early vote was 39.8 percent and Republicans' was 38.3 percent.

Since 2014, Democrats have boosted their share of the mail-in midterm vote, at least so far. Republicans have boosted their share of the early vote, and in fact seem to have almost reached parity with the Democrats on that measure. Over the weekend, they actually enjoyed a slight lead, which is quite unusual, and their current deficit of just over 3,000 ballots is well above par.

Of course, we have no idea how all these people are voting. Their party affiliation doesn't force them to back their party's candidates. In 2006, Republican campaigners actually ended up turning out the voters who turned them out of power. We also don't know if the parties, in turning out more early voters (as both will), aren't just cannibalizing what would otherwise be their Election Day vote.

But we can say based on these numbers that early turnout is not unusual for a midterm. If Democrats are headed toward some kind of blowout, it will have to be because they've won over the center, not because they did a substantially better job getting their base to the polls early in Florida.