Is Red the New Purple? Why Florida Is Now a Red State
The sunshine state is in the grips of the GOP, and it’s bleeding red.
For the first time in modern history, as of January 2022, there are “more active registered Republican” voters in the state of Florida than there are Democratic voters. Flashback just a few short years ago to 2016, and Florida was considered a key swing state in presidential elections, its statewide elections often decided by slim margins. In 2016, for example, Donald Trump won by only 1.2 percentage points over Hilary Clinton.
In 2018, Democrats and Republicans were similarly hopeful to win both the midterm elections as well as the gubernatorial race. Republicans, in both races, took home the win. And significantly, the winner of the gubernatorial race—Ron DeSantis—was not just a Republican, but a GOP conservative and MAGA enthusiast as well. In fact, he is favored by many as a “candidate to succeed Trump as leader of the GOP.” The state’s partisan pendulum, despite some close calls in recent years, is swinging to the right with increasing speed. Some experts are even claiming that Florida should no longer be considered a key battleground state in presidential elections. After all, both the state’s senators are from the Republican Party, Republicans now hold the legislative majority in Florida’s House of Representatives, and DeSantis sits comfortably in the Governor’s Mansion.
Despite the rhetoric in recent presidential elections claiming Florida as a key perennial swing state, the people of Florida have not sent a Democratic candidate to the White House since 2012. 2012 was also the last time Florida elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate. Not only that, but there has not been a Democratic Attorney General since 1998 and the party has not seen a majority in the state’s House representatives since 1986. Still, pre-election polls in both 2016 and 2020 still suggested some levels of ambiguity in the outcomes of those elections.
Recent trends, however, suggest this uncertainty may be coming to an end.
Once in a Decennial
Florida is currently in the decennial process of redrawing their electoral map. According to the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, reapportionment of key electoral districts in Florida will give a slight advantage—more than already exists—to the Republican Party in almost all of the newly drawn districts. As Trump more than tripled his margin of victory between 2016 and 2020, when he won the state by 3.4 percentage points, these structural changes pose a growing uphill battle for Florida’s Democratic Party. As CNN political journalist Steve Contorno puts it, the “total GOP control over the state government in Tallahassee has given Republicans the freedom to set the agenda for the election year, unilaterally change voting laws and draw new congressional maps that could swing the House” in the GOP’s favor.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis does not help the chances of Democratic victory. Quite the opposite is true, in fact. His appeal to Republicans across the nation has won him funding, media attention, and conservative praise from both the State’s Republican Party as well as the national Party—attention that Florida Democrats have “struggled to match.”
In a quite unusual redistricting attempt by the Governor, DeSantis has honed in on Florida’s 5th Congressional District, a northern district originally drawn to give racial minorities greater representation in the House. If all goes in DeSantis’ favor, this district would be reallocated to a smaller portion of northeastern Florida in such a way that favors white Republicans and significantly threatens the district’s current seat holder, Rep. Al Lawson, a Black Democrat.
Similarly, DeSantis’ efforts would significantly alter the apportionment of the 10th Congressional District of the Orlando region in favor of Republicans. Currently held by Representative Val Demings, also a Black Democrat, this change could “significantly diminish the voting strength of minorities” in this district and, in turn, boost Republican elector power.
Unique to the 2022 redistricting process, however, is that Governor DeSantis has taken on far greater involvement in the process of apportionment and redistricting. According to the state of Florida itself, “the Legislature redraws the districts,” not governors, who “typically do not submit map proposals.” Yet DeSantis has submitted his own electoral map for the 2022 process that could significantly increase Republican representation in the House via the suppression of minority voters. While the Florida Senate must also approve the new map, the governor conveniently retains a veto power requiring a two-thirds legislative threshold to override—a feat that is highly unlikely given the fact that Democrats make up far less than half the Florida Senate. All this adds up to mean that DeSantis will likely block any redistricting plan that does not work in this party’s favor.
The Gray Migration
In addition to redistricting, an increasingly aging electorate further points to a Republican-leaning status quo. The influx of older retirees—a demographic that overwhelmingly leans right—has accordingly challenged the electoral capital of increasing numbers of young voters and voters of color in Florida.
Will Florida’s racial demographics balance out the state’s aging population? After all, half the population of Florida is composed of people of color. According to Pew Research Center, only 27% of Latino voters and only 8% of Black voters in Florida vote Republican. And Florida’s older population is certainly not a new factor to be considered.
Unfortunately for Democrats, the answer seems to be no.
While partisan tendencies among racial minorities show that a majority of Latino Floridians indeed vote Democratic, they do so far behind the national average. And these numbers are only decreasing. During the 2020 campaign season, the Biden campaign staved off a myriad of “false socialism labels” from the Trump campaign. The GOP’s portrayal of the Democratic Party as a continuum of socialism has increasingly resonated with Cuban and Venezuelan-American voters, many of whom have had personal or familial experience fleeing socialist dictatorships. As this portion of the electorate makes up over 80% of the Latino population in Florida, their loyalty to the Democratic Party holds a powerful sway in presidential and state elections. In 2020, Cuban and Venezuelan-American voters were key to increasing Trump’s margin of victory in 2020, specifically in more urban counties. While Biden won a majority of these urban counties, he did so by a much slimmer margin than Hillary Clinton had in 2016.
In addition to age and racial demographics, the urban-rural divide in Florida has also pushed the state further to the right. The growth in cities and the subsequent increase in liberal demographics within these cities has indeed taken place in Florida as it has in other former swing states that now lean left, such as Georgia, Colorado, and Virginia.
The Urban-Rural Divide
Large cities like Miami, Tampa, and Orlando simply have not grown fast enough, or at least not fast enough to match the growth of non-metros and small towns. These non-metropolitan communities are increasingly drawing middle-aged and retired voters who “want low taxes, affordable housing and warm weather all year.” These voters are thus not only moving from out of state, but also from cities within Florida. Not only are older, more conservative voters gaining more power relative to urban liberals, but these urban Democratic voters will likely simultaneously lose electoral significance once redistricting is complete. The ‘Gray Migration,’ as it has come to be known, has handed the Republican Party over 1.5 million new partisan voters in the state of Florida. This crucial migratory shift, unique to Florida’s older voting demographics, allowed the state to not only stave off the same blue waves that flipped Georgia and Arizona in 2020, but has actually given a significant electoral advantage to the GOP.
A Look to 2024
Despite Trump’s 2020 loss at the national level, his victory in the sunshine state has given Florida Republicans cause for immense celebration—and in response, has given Florida Democrats cause for immense dread. After the 2020 election, Mr. Christian Ziegler, vice chair of the Florida Republican Party, claimed he had “never been more excited and bullish about where [the] party was headed”—and that was after the Democrats took the White House.
The state now has two promising potential Republican candidates for 2024: Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. The majority of polls show that, as of now, Biden would lose in Florida to both DeSantis and Trump. While pre-election polls increase with accuracy as election day approaches, Democrats should be nervous. Regarding Trump, New York Times writer Elaina Plott argues the former president, in many ways, fits Florida like a glove. As per Robert Crohan’s argument, Trump is old and well-off like many retirees, and “touts the capitalism of his country and turns his rage towards Latin American despots.” If Trump fails to win the hearts of Floridians for a third time as the election approaches, then who better to take his place than the state’s own governor? If not kindred spirits of sorts, Governor DeSantis is perhaps Trump’s biggest competitor in the 2024 presidential election. DeSantis currently polls only slightly behind Trump for the 2024 election, but is shown to still pull out a victory over Biden.
While such polls should be regarded with a healthy amount of skepticism being so far away from November 2024, they offer valuable insight into the ideological state of mind within the Florida electorate. Clearly, the Democrats have their work cut out for them. Perhaps securing the minority vote may be the only path to victory for Florida Democrats.
What should be cause for the most concern, however, is not the loss of the third most populous state to the GOP, but the tactics by which they have managed to turn Florida red. Whether it be the denial of science during a global pandemic, the false invigoration of a socialist takeover, or racially oppressive redistricting, the GOP is playing dirty—and it seems to be working.
Jae Grace (BC ‘24) is a staff writer for CPR planning to double major in political science and economics on the pre-law track.