Massive Republican Milestone in Florida & Sticking to the Issues – Top 3 Takeaways – August 13th, 2024
- More than a million. It’s official, as we’re now only twelve weeks away from Election Day (and only a week away from Florida’s Primary Elections) Florida’s Republican Party has pulled out to what only 15 or so years ago would have been unthinkable. A lead of over one million registered voters within the state. While the Florida Division of Elections has yet to do its monthly data drop reflecting all of the changes in voter registration statewide, each county’s election office keeps updated records ongoing. Based on data from all 67 counties, Florida entered this week with 1 million 24 more registered Republicans than Democrats. Florida’s Democrats had held a voter registration advantage from the onset of partisan record keeping in 1972 until November of 2021. As recently as 1987 Democrats held a greater than one million voter advantage over Republicans and as recently as 2013 the advantage was still over a half million voters. It’s rather remarkable that in under three years Florida’s gone from political parity by way of voter registration to a million plus voter lead for the Republican Party. In political cycles it’s often said that the party with the most momentum heading into Election Day will win. There’s no state in the country with as much conservative momentum as Florida, which bodes well for GOPers from the top to the bottom of tickets this November. As for the big three themes behind the timing of Florida’s Republican milestone, they appear to be...
- Ethnicity, geography and partisan primaries. Florida is continuing to see Hispanic voters of varying backgrounds register and reregister as Republicans in record numbers across this state – though it’s most noticeable throughout South Florida and specially within Miami Dade and Palm Beach Counties which have gone from being part of a bright blue wall Florida’s Democrats relied on as recently as six years ago to a little more than pale blue veil by voter registration today. Both counties also notably broke for the entire Republican cabinet in the 2022 midterm elections – which was a first in the history of Palm Beach County. The second trend, the migration trend, is the one that’s most commonly talked about. From the moment this state became known as “the free state of Florida” during the peak of the pandemic convservative freedom seekers have been moving here in droves. That has no doubt been a huge part of the story, but so too, has the outward-bound migration. I’ve previously reported on a key aspect of Florida’s political migration story not only being the political persuasion of those moving here but also those who are choosing to move out of the state. As noted by political scientist Lonna Atkeson from Florida State University to Florida Politics: [People] don’t want to live in California anymore, or maybe they don’t want to live in Florida anymore, so those people who don’t want to live here are moving out. People moving into the state align themselves with more conservative views and people moving out tend to have more liberal views. And as for the third factor being partisan primaries... Florida’s non-party affiliated voters have always been a big part of Florida’s political story. Back in the days when Florida was considered the ultimate swing state it was how they mostly broke that decided elections. With that said, there over 525,500 fewer registered NPAs today than there were two years ago today. Presidential election cycles and specifically Florida’s closed primary law, prevents non-partisan voters from voting in a party’s primary elections. As has historically been the case, many partisan leaners that register as NPAs reregister in a political party to participate in the primaries. These are the three primary catalysts that have taken Florida from having been considered the ultimate swing state to perhaps being considered the ultimate red state in under three years.
- Focus on the issues. On Monday former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told Fox News, in so many words, that Donald Trump needs to focus on the issues. The latest weekend mini controversies included Trump suggesting that Kamala Harris’ crowds were perhaps AI generated to make them seem larger and JD Vance telling CNN’s Dana Bash that Kamala Harris has been a chameleon on how she has previously described her race. McCarthy’s right. It’s time to focus on the issues. Do you care what Kamala Harris’ crowd sized are or do you care what her policies are? Do you care if Kamala Harris has perhaps selectively used race in different ways when she’s thought that it helps her case politically? Or do you care about how she might use identity politics to govern from on high if she’s given a chance? The former and perhaps future president of the United States has a lot of strengths. Staying rhetorically focused on what matters most isn’t one of them. You have one candidate, Kamala Harris, who is currently being given a political facelift by a very clever team of political operatives seeking to get her elected. She has carefully crafted messages that she delivers according to the script and isn’t deviating to even conduct an interview. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is effectively allowing her to do this by placing the focus of his commentary about Harris on the things that don’t matter most, or even really at all – especially to most voters. And when he does this, he becomes the story rather than Harris and her failed record as vice president. Just as it was critically important for Donald Trump to put his grievances about the 2020 election behind him for this presidential election campaign which he has mostly done, it’s every bit as important that he focus on the issues rather than creating or buying into online noise. If Trump’s makes this about the issues he’ll win. If he makes this about crowd sizes and the color of Kamala’s skin, he’ll lose. It’s twelve weeks until Election Day – it's time for him to choose. In the delayed X interview with Elon Musk Monday night, he seemingly did a better job of doing this. Including introducing a couple of especially bold policy positions – a la the elimination of the Department of Education, sending the authority for education back to the states.