Red State – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis addresses a crowd while President Donald Trump watches at a rally – Courtesy: Shutterstock – Image by jctabb
By flipping several counties throughout the state on Tuesday, President Trump solidified Florida’s position as a deep-red state.
For the first time in 36 years, a Republican won the presidency in Miami-Dade County, and the broader Tampa area also went red. Trump also turned over substantial portions of blue-leaning Central Florida including Duval County in Jacksonville.
On Tuesday, Trump won the state by 13 points, a significant improvement above his roughly 3-point victory in 2020 and his 1-point victory in 2016.
Even though Florida has been leaning Republican for almost a decade, Trump’s win and Vice President Harris’s poor showing highlight how much he has strengthened his political hold on the state and are also indicative of the former president’s overachievement on election night.
It was Florida Republican strategist Ford O’Connell who observed, “I looked at Duval and I said Duval is a microcosm of Georgia.” “He will definitely win Georgia if he wins this by five.”
Like in much of the nation, voters’ main concerns in Florida were immigration and the economy. The economy was ranked as the most important issue by 41% of respondents, followed by immigration (23%), and abortion (9%), according to the AP VoteCast.
Trump is now killing it by thirteen points. According to Republican strategist Justin Sayfie, who is based in Florida, “part of that is kind of an affirmation of [Trump’s] agenda on issues like immigration, economy, and inflation.”
Other Republicans have said that a conservative populist stance on topics like immigration and the economy is partly responsible for the state’s enhanced success.
Trump contributed to the discussion by assisting other Florida politicians in expressing populist conservatism. Miami Dade, that’s how you win,” O’Connell remarked.
The Latino community in the state responded favorably to the messaging, especially in Osceola County in Central Florida and Miami Dade County in South Florida. Notably, Trump won by little over one point in Osceola County, which was won by President Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by double digits. While Osceola County is home to a substantial Puerto Rican population, Miami Dade is home to a significant Cuban American community.
Sayfie and other Republicans in Florida contend that the results of Tuesday night were the consequence of several reasons, including the state’s population expansion over the past ten years, Governor Ron DeSantis’s (R) generally praised response to the coronavirus pandemic, and a more robust GOP infrastructure. When he moved to Florida in 2020, Trump famously turned the state into the epicenter of the Republican universe.
O’Connell remarked, “This didn’t happen overnight.” He went on to say, “Mechanically it started with Rick Scott,” alluding to Scott’s initial triumph as governor in 2010.
O’Connell stated, “The Florida Republican Party really started the voter registration drive after that first one.”
Republicans currently outnumber Democrats in the state by more than a million.
Scott, a two-term governor, improved on his previous statewide Florida victory margins on Tuesday to win reelection to the Senate. The senator defeated former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel Powell (D-Fla.) by more than 12 points on Tuesday, despite having previously won the state’s election and reelection contests by a slim margin.
Republicans’ edge in voter registration in the state, according to Chris Hartline, a senior strategist to the Scott campaign, was largely responsible for the triumph.
Hartline stated, “It’s very difficult to compare Florida to what’s happening in other parts of the country.” “We did better in Orange, we won Hillsborough, we won Pinellas, and we won Seminole.” Is that a result of Harris’s inability to win over suburban voters, or is it a result of the state’s growing number of registered Republicans?
The tactical aspect of it, which is that Florida Democrats lack a functional party, is difficult to overlook, he continued.
Democrats in Florida claimed that Tuesday’s results showed some encouraging trends, such as a 25 percent increase in turnout compared to 2022 and the fact that most voters supported legislation that would have guaranteed abortion rights in the state. Because it fell short of the 60 percent requirement, the initiative finally failed.
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in a statement after Tuesday’s election that “Florida Democrats will continue to organize, mobilize, and hold Republicans accountable — because our job is bigger than one election.”
However, the party in Florida is struggling with what went wrong both nationally and in their home state, much like Democrats nationwide.
John Morgan, a well-known lawyer from Central Florida and Democratic fundraiser, claimed publicly at the start of the contest that “Democrats had a disaster at the top of the ticket.”
He went on to say, “Pennisburg is officially Florida and Florida is officially Texas.”
Republicans in Florida, meanwhile, are cautioning their fellow lawmakers against becoming overconfident in the state, pointing out that the same circumstances that benefited Republicans there may also benefit Democrats in the future.
Florida is currently a red state, but for a straightforward reason, I don’t think the Republicans can get arrogant. O’Connell stated, “You have a very ephemeral population, and things change, and eventually the Democrats may get it together.”
In our two-party system, parties are established to allow them to renew themselves. You can’t get arrogant because of this.
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Melissa’s career in writing started more than 20 years ago. Today, she lives in South Florida with her husband and two boys.
