The swing state that never swings, the biggest disappointment for democrats. so close, so many times, never almost never does it make the leap. What’s going on in Florida, and can democrats do anything about it.
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Florida Organizations
I have not linked the state party here, as its very bad reputation suggests spending money isn’t a great move until things get sorted out.
https://www.peoplepowerforflorida.com/
Frustrating Florida History
With national elections, you can start in 2000, where that endless recount led through several court decisions, some Republican shenanigans, and an eventual official Bush win of 537 votes. (Just one off from the electoral college. Conspiracy theorists, have at it.) Florida went on to vote Bush again by a good sized margin, and vote very very narrowly for Obama a couple of times. Than in 2016 it struck again, voting narrowly for Bankrupt Donald by about 1.2%. 2018...I’ll get to that shortly. In 2020 it was polling well for Biden, with a narrow win expected: some internet commenters predicted its fast vote counting would finish Trump off with a strong EV total before mail in/early/Trump lawsuits could stir up trouble. Instead, the state voted for Orange man by a slightly larger margin than last time.
It’s in statewide races where Florida’s reputation is secured. It’s fellow disappointing state North Carolina has at least shifted from Rep to Dem and voted for a good amount of dems statewide in the past decade. Florida has not had a democratic governor since 1999, only 2 terms of any other democratic statewide official since 2000 (Including the current agricultural commissioner Nikki Fried), and the legislature has been Republican controlled since around 2000. Senate wise is was split control until that disappointing 2018 election: in a wave year for Democrats, Florida switched to a Republican senator and picked a Republican governor by extremely narrow margins.
Why does the state vote like this? Some suggest corruption/something shady, I can’t really analyze that in a post like this, and it still doesn’t explain the narrowness of so many results. A common explanation is that the democratic party is very poorly run and Republican party well run, which seems to make sense. Demographically, the explanations are all over the place. Most consistently blamed are lots of conservative retirees moving in and balancing out anyone else who moves in. Otherwise the changes are all over the place, rom before 2016 to after 2016, some counties about halfway down the peninsula moved towards Republicans, in 2020 Miami’s county got a lot less blue, some work with Puerto Ricans supposedly drew some votes in 2018.
A poorly run party could help explain this, a party that just isn’t on the ball with all the various demographic groups will end up missing some things here and there.
Fixing Florida and winning some races probably takes a combination of improving the state party, and getting information and votes from all demographic groups lined up properly.
Shine some sun on Mods and Progs
Florida in general seems less friendly for progs than other states, using current districts, maybe 2-4 better dems could be elected it looks like. My general impression is that there is more resistance in the state party than normal, though that may just be Florida’s bad reputation at work. It may be that people in general are also resistant, which is a vague impression, but I have no data to go on here.
Florida is of course gerrymandered, an approximately 50/50 state is in the house a 16/10 Republican split.
2022 Elections
Florida has a senate and governor election in 2022, in addition to the usual rest of state government and house of reps races. Demings is almost a meme candidate, but you also have opinions like this tweet based on its recent election history. My gut feeling is to send support in 2022 since the state is still pretty close, but not as a highest priority given its voting history.
Florida’ state legislature is pretty well Republican controlled and gerrymandered on top, and will likely be so again in 2022, so probably not as high priority as states with flippable legislatures.
Summary: Support Efforts to Organize Florida Voters, and probably Fix up the Party. Next two states: Tomorrow Alaska, Day after Pennsylvania