FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Prospects for Republicans in Florida are shining brighter than ever as Democrats face difficult-to-overcome numbers.
It’s not just braggadocio from Republican candidates and activists.
It’s not just the multiple polls, foreshadowing Republican wins and Democratic losses in the marquee elections in Florida.
And it’s not just the decisions by major Democratic donors and left-of-center interest groups to spend their money in states where they see a better chance of winning than Florida.
It’s hard, concrete numbers.
Republicans are ahead of Democrats in the number of mail ballots and in-person early votes cast, as of Friday morning. The two parties were evenly split 24 hours earlier; five days before, Democrats were ahead.
Any chance for Democratic victories in the big 2022 Florida races requires them to go into Nov. 8 with more ballots cast than Republicans, who consistently have better Election Day turnout.
Final tallies of people registered to vote in this year’s midterm election in Florida shows the Republican Party continuing to surge while the Democrats are stagnant.
The topline numbers: Florida has 5.28 million registered Republicans for the Nov. 8 election — an increase of more than 86,376 from the number of Republicans registered to vote in the August primary.
The state has 4.97 million Democrats — just 9,380 more than the number who were registered to vote in August.
That works out to more than nine new Republican registrants for every one new Democratic registered voter.
The latest numbers underscore the reality — calamitous for Democrats and heartening for Republicans — that Florida is leaving behind its longtime position as the biggest swing state in the country, one that could go either way in big elections, and is landing solidly in the Republican red column.
“It might be time to consider Florida, if not a red state, than a red-leaning state. If you’re just being factual, until the Democrats start winning races statewide with some degree of regularity, it’s hard to call it a battleground state,” said Kevin Wagner, a Florida Atlantic University political scientist.
Sean Phillippi, a Democratic strategist who has worked for many political campaigns, in South Florida and statewide, said the voter registration numbers are a good indication of the likely outcomes in top races in the Nov. 8 election.
In the years since the 2012 election, Republicans have won 11 statewide elections. Democrats have one just one, for state agriculture commissioner.
Democrats’ prospects don’t look any better this year, Phillippi said.
“Democrats lost this election when they lost their voter registration advantage,” Phillippi said. “Republicans have been winning elections at a good clip for the last decade — and that’s when Democrats had a voter registration advantage.”
That makes it even harder for Democrats to overcome what routinely happens in midterms between presidential elections: the party that controls the White House suffers losses.
Florida
As Florida’s population has grown in the last decade, so has the number of registered voters.
The state now has 14.5 million registered voters, up 21.5% from 11.9 million for the 2012 election. Both parties have increased their numbers over the decade, but the Republicans have increased much faster.
Last year, for the first time in modern Florida history, the number of registered Republicans surpassed the number of registered Democrats.
Florida’s 5.28 million currently registered Republicans is a 24.3% increase from the 4.25 million in 2012.
Florida’s 4.97 million Democrats is 3.96% higher than the 4.78 million in 2012.
Ten years ago, the last time Democrats won a big statewide race, then-President Barack Obama defeated Republican Mitt Romney by 74,309 votes out of more than 8 million cast. Then-U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., also won that year, by a larger margin of 1.1 million votes.
At the time, the Democrats had a 535,987-voter advantage in statewide registration. It now stands at a 305,950 advantage for Republicans.
What’s going on? Several factors contribute to the Republican gains: Party organization (or lack of it), the growth in no party affiliation/independent voters, approval by many Florida voters (and newcomers) of former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Some of the shift in totals for the two parties may now represent a more realistic picture of how people actually vote, Wagner said. Some conservative parts of rural Florida were long home to people who were registered Democratic, even though they voted Republican, and have been switching parties.
Democratic data analyst Matthew Isbell wrote Friday in his MCIMAPS Report newsletter on Substack that looking at changes in registration since 2020 “the strongest GOP growth has been in the ancestrally-Democratic Northern panhandle and the central farm counties.”
Organization
Florida Republicans pour money and people into registering voters and mobilizing them to turn out for elections.
The Florida Democratic Party talks about voter registration efforts, and makes grand announcements in advance of big election season. Democratic efforts haven’t proven very successful since the efforts that twice helped Obama win the state.
“As you know, over the course of the last 10 years the party’s efforts have been lacking in efforts and in continuity. We have let our guard down, especially during off years. And the other side have eaten away at our margins,” state Democratic Chairman Manny Diaz said in February. “That’s not going to happen anymore. We’re changing the paradigm.”
In the months since, Republicans have increased their advantage over the Democrats.
“They’re better organized than we are. It’s the simplest answer I can give you,” said Bernie Parness, longtime leader of the Deerfield Beach Democratic Club and a Deerfield Beach city commissioner. “We have to do a better job.”
State Sen. Lauren Book, a Broward Democrat who became her party’s Senate leader last year, said “abysmal” voter registration numbers illustrate years of failure by the state Democratic Party to register voters and create “an environment for Democrats to be successful.”
Democrats in the Florida Senate and House put money into voter registration this year, an effort she said yielded results in targeted areas. But it was hobbled when a donor who’d promised to match their spending didn’t come through, she said.
It’s a chicken-and-egg situation: As Florida starts looking more out of reach for Democrats, donors are less likely to fund efforts. With less funding, there are fewer efforts to register voters, which makes the state less winnable.
The situation is better for Republicans and worse for Democrats because of what happened in 2020. Republicans continued their in-person voter registration efforts, while Democrats pulled back during the first stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
Independents soar
The biggest gains in voters are people who sign up as no party affiliation/independents.
Florida now has 3.99 million no party affiliation/independent voters, up 55% from 2012.
More and more, “people don’t like to be identified with a party,” Wagner said.
He and Susan MacManus, a retired University of South Florida political scientist, said that’s especially true of younger voters.
Younger voters — when they actually turn out and vote — tend to lean more Democratic, Wagner said, but turnout is almost always substantially lower than other age groups, especially in midterm elections.
MacManus said attracting young NPA voters is a critical mission for Democrats. If they continue to stumble, Florida victories are likely to prove elusive, she said.
There’s an unusual feature in Florida. What most people think of as an independent voter is actually “no party affiliation.” There is also an “Independent Party,” which is technically a minor political party, and many people who choose it actually want the status that comes with NPA.
There are currently 206,024 registered Independent Party voters plus 56,131 others spread among eight other minor parties.
Claiming credit
The two biggest forces in Florida politics, DeSantis and Trump, each claim credit for Republican voter registration gains.
Here’s how DeSantis put it at an Oct. 16 campaign rally in Coral Springs:
“When I was standing here four years ago preparing for the governor’s election, this state had almost 300,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, and we had never in the history of Florida prior to me being elected governor had more registered Republicans than Democrats,” he said. “This November we will now have over 300,000 more Republicans than Democrats. We’re making massive gains in Miami-Dade, major gains in Palm Beach and, honestly, not as many, we’re making gains in Broward.”
The Wednesday announcement on Trump’s website that he would hold a Miami rally two days before Election Day stated:
“President Trump delivered a historic red wave for Florida in the 2018 midterms with his slate of endorsed candidates up and down the ballot and molded the Sunshine State into the MAGA stronghold it is today. Thanks to President Trump, Florida is no longer a purple state; it’s an America First Red State.”
DeSantis and Trump are potential rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and the Nov. 6 Trump rally announcement mentioned U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is seeking reelection, but not DeSantis, who is also running for reelection.
South Florida
South Florida is home to a large population of the state’s Democratic voters. But Republicans have been narrowing the gap.
In Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, there are about 577,000 more Democratic registered voters than Republicans.
Going into the 2012 elections, the Democrats had a 667,000-vote advantage.
—Broward 2022: 266,053 Republicans, 597,454 Democrats, 369,319 NPA/independents.
—Broward 2012: 259,420 Republicans, 593,515 Democrats, 269,566 NPA/independents
—Miami-Dade 2022: 439,200 Republicans, 576,406 Democrats, 490,534 NPA/independents.
—Miami-Dade 2012: 378,457 Republicans, 573,665 Democrats, 342,666 NPA/independents.
—Palm Beach County 2022: 290,623 Republicans, 398,918 Democrats, 292,010 NPA/independents.
—Palm Beach County 2012: 248,796 Republicans, 386,646 Democrats, 203,349 NPA/independents.
In the 2020 election, Trump did much better in Miami-Dade County than in 2016, thanks largely to gains among Hispanic voters. In the two years since the presidential election, the Republican advantage among Hispanic registered voters has grown.
Among Miami-Dade County registered voters who identified themselves as Hispanic (ethnicity designations aren’t required for people registering), Republicans currently have a 79,399 advantage over the Democrats. In 2020, it was a 42,464 advantage.
In Broward, the number of Black registered voters is about the same now — 310,444 — as it was heading into the 2020 presidential election.
But the number of Black registered Democrats in Broward has decreased by about 8,600 since 2020, while the number of Black NPA/independents is up about 7,900 and the number of Black Republicans has increased by 602.
One district tips
Florida state House of Representatives District 100, which takes in most of Broward east of Dixie Highway (plus a few pockets west) from the Palm Beach County line on the north to State Road 84 on the South, is evenly split between the two parties. It also has a large share — about 30% — of no party affiliation/independents.
And Democrats have dreamed of defeating state Rep. Chip LaMarca, the only Republican in the Legislature whose district lies entirely within Broward County. Democrat Linda Thompson Gonzalez is challenging LaMarca a second time, in a district that’s been somewhat reconfigured since their 2020 contest.
In July, the 100th District had 47,739 Democrats and 46,189 Republicans, a Democratic advantage of 1,580 registered voters.
By the time registration closed for the November election, the Republicans were ahead by 519.
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