In the second part of my swing state series, I am taking a look at Florida, the largest swing state, with 17 million people and growing. Yesterday, I wrote the first part of this series, on Missouri (
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/3/231640/0386#3).
Ah, Florida. Perfect weather, horrible political circumstances. First, some history on the Sunshine State. Like all southern states, Florida was solidly Democratic from the Civil War days until the Eisenhower era. By the end of World War II, though, it was becoming less and less "southern" as many snowbirds from the Rust Belt moved there and populated its cities and suburbs. Because of the migration, Florida started becoming more mixed, and therefore more swingy. Shockingly, it joined Democratic states like Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Virginia in electing Eisenhower in 1952.
More below the jump......
After a brief period in the 1970's of being solidly Republican, Florida returned to the swing state category in voting for Carter in 1976. Clinton managed to win it by a strong margin in 1996. And of course, Gore unofficially won it in 2000.
Yet, a Republican machine, led by people such as Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris, swept into power in the 1990's, taking complete control of the previously Democratic legislature and, later, taking the governor's mansion. In 2004, Democrat Bob Graham's Senate seat flipped, going to Mel Martinez by a small margin, even though Betty Castor had led in most polls. Much more depressingly, Bush won Florida by a stronger than expected 5 points.
Part of this is because of the new Republican machine's alleged manipulation of election results. But part of it isn't: the panhandle, for example, which in the Old America was a solidly Democratic region due to its conservative, uber-white population, is shaping up to be a Republican stronghold for the same reason today. Florida's Latinos, mostly Cubans, are a Republican group even though Latinos in such conservative states as Texas went to Kerry.
So what do Democrats do to win this humongous electoral prize (and a state that could surpass New York in population before the end of the decade)? Well, for one, we need to know who and where to target. It is crucial to win both the Democratic base in the southeast corner and the fast-growing and swingy I-4 corridor, which runs from Tampa to Daytona Beach. We should also chip away at the Republican grip of the Gulf Coast. And finally, Latinos are more important than I can possibly emphasize. If we can get Cubans to be a more competitive demographic and win other Latinos, like Puerto Ricans, Venezuelans, and Mexicans, strongly, much of Florida should come our way again.
There is little we can do about the growing red in the panhandle. It was only a matter of time, given that the area is culturally more like Georgia and Alabama than like the Caribbean. But we can slowly break down this GOP machine by winning more statewide offices (Senator Bill Nelson is currently the only statewide elected Democrat left). Quite simply, we absolutely MUST make inroads into the third fastest-growing state in America if we are to take back the "majority party" label.