Florida Primaries - How often does your Congressmen vote with President Trump?
Bottom Line: Florida’s primary season is in full swing, at least to the extent campaigning can happen during the summer of corona (and not the beer which is best with lime). During the campaigning, and intraparty challenges for office come many questions. Like for example, is a particular Republican a true supporter of President Trump’s agenda, or is a particular Democrat not progressive enough? One way, in my opinion the best way, of measuring these things is by comparing actual voting records in Congress to President Trump’s agenda.
Neither Senators are up for election this year, so this story will focus on just South Florida’s congressional representatives in the House. And for a fair comparison, only votes conducted during the current Congress, the 116th, will be used. Here are the representatives based on the percentage of the time they’ve voted with President Trump:
- Mario Diaz Balart – 89%
- Brian Mast - 88%
- Lois Frankel – 6%
- Ted Deutch – 5%
- Alcee Hastings – 5%
- Debbie Mucarsel-Powell - 5%
- Donna Shalala – 5%
- Debbie Wasserman Schultz - 5%
- Frederica Wilson - 4%
Not surprisingly South Florida’s two Republicans are at the top of the list with Representative Diaz-Balart being the most likely to vote with President Trump, followed closely by Brian Mast. Also, not surprisingly, South Florida’s Democrats are significantly less likely to vote with the President. But what’s also clear in this exercise is just how much division there is between the two parties currently. It’s remarkable that there’s an 82% difference of opinion/voting records between the most moderate Republican and Democrat. It also illustrates another important point. While Lois Frankel’s voting record is technically the most bi-partisan among Democrats and Frederica Wilson’s is the least. We’re only talking about 2%. There’s very little difference between the most and least progressive Democrats in South Florida. They’re all hard left based on their voting records. In fact, all are harder to the left than either of South Florida’s Republicans are to the right. Notably, all are further to the left of their party’s leader – Speaker Nancy Pelosi – who votes with President Trump 9% of the time. Surprised?