Q&A of the Day – Is This the Year Palm Beach County Flips?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s entry: Today’s note was submitted by Jenine Milum who is the North County Regional Director for the Republican Executive Committee of Palm Beach County. Jenine is a data analytics expert by trade, having served many of the largest financial institutions during her career. She regularly puts that expertise to work locally, working on matters of election integrity. Her analysis on Palm Beach County’s municipal election cycle illustrates specific outcomes that are part of the macro trend towards the right we’ve seen in Palm Beach County.
Bottom Line: Here’s Jenine’s analysis...
<<Registration Trends and Turnout Patterns Signal a New Direction in Palm Beach County
Palm Beach County is undergoing a quiet but unmistakable political shift — and it’s not just about voter registrations. In March 2024, Democrats held a 6% registration advantage over Republicans. By 2025, that lead narrowed to 4%. Today, according to VotePalmBeach.gov, it has shrunk to just 1.4%.
If voter registrations are tightening, one would expect election outcomes to follow. The March 10, 2026 municipal elections — officially non‑partisan but dominated by candidates registered with major parties — delivered exactly that.
The March 10, 2026 municipal elections reflected that tightening landscape. Excluding the still‑pending Boca Raton mayoral results, Republicans flipped three Democrat‑held seats and lost none. Democrats gained zero. And in races where a Republican appeared on the ballot, 72% of those seats were won — a steady climb from 57% in 2024 and 62% in 2025.
Two registered Republicans, Johnny Meier and Stephen Levin, won their Wellington council races, turning the council fully red. In Royal Palm Beach, Selena Samios defeated a Democrat incumbent despite Democrats holding an 8% registration advantage. Additional Republican victories in Boca Raton, Greenacres, Juno Beach, Palm Beach, Gulf Stream, South Palm Beach, and Palm Beach Gardens reinforced the trend.
A deeper look at turnout data reveals even more. Across all municipal races with candidates on the ballot:
- 35% of votes came from registered Republicans
- 36% from registered Democrats
That aligns almost perfectly with the county’s 1% Democratic registration edge.
But in races where a Republican was actually on the ballot, the numbers shifted:
- 39% of votes came from Republicans
- 38% from Democrats
Republicans gained four percentage points above their baseline; Democrats gained only two. That performance gap is not accidental.
While the full strategy remains behind the curtain, the Republican Party of Palm Beach significantly strengthened its Get‑Out‑The‑Vote operations and deployed new tactics that clearly paid off. Sustained success could encourage Republican candidates to compete in areas that historically saw little to no GOP presence.
Congratulations to all candidates, all winners, and every volunteer and voter who supported their municipal elections.>>
Recently, in response to my coverage of the potential for Palm Beach County to flip to a Republican majority, Governor DeSantis reposted one of my posts/videos that said: Palm Beach County's Democrat advantage collapsed from 138,400 to just 12,662 voters. PBC could flip Republican for the first time in county history by midterms. DeSantis added this: Palm Beach County went red on election night in 2022 for the first time in decades. It will soon see registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats — something that would have been unthinkable for a county that was such a blue bastion for so long.
The governor is right. When I moved to Palm Beach County 21 years ago, it was a D+29 county, or in other words, close to where Broward is today. I told my boss at the time that one day we’ll flip Palm Beach County. As Jenine’s analysis demonstrates, it isn’t just in statewide and federal elections that we’re seeing the impact of the conversion show up. It’s happening in local elections, too. This should help aid candidate recruitment going forward, it’s important that it does, and who knows, maybe some of the elected Democrats, whose values more closely align with Republicans, will decide they no longer have to hide to get elected in PBC.