Florida’s Post Pandemic Political Trends
Bottom Line: By now most Floridians have come to understand that those fleeing blue states to Florida in recent years have brought their political preferences with them, but that those preferences tend to lean right. As discussed with my monthly voter regisration updates, Florida’s Republicans, which first outpaced Democrats by way of voter registrations in November of 2021, have consistently grown the lead since. In fact, the advantage has been accelerating – even during an off-election year this year. Florida’s monthly updates include a lot of info, including the number of new and removed voters. However, what’s been less clear is how many newly registered voters were already Florida residents, how many have switched parties, and how many registrations are the result of new residents. A recent study has shown the extent to which post-pandemic relocations into Florida have served to aid in the political transformation of Florida.
According to research firm L2, here’s the political split of registered voters who’ve moved into Florida since the onset of the pandemic:
- Republican: 46%
- NPA/Minor Party: 31%
- Democrat: 23%
Republicans have added voters at literally a two-to-one pace compared to Democrats since the onset of the pandemic with Democrats pacing well behind non-party affiliated registrations as well. It helps explain the rather rapid political transformation of the state and the atypical voter registration patterns we’ve seen to start this off-election year. But that wasn’t the only take away from the L2 data. We also have learned how many voters have switched registrations.
Since January of 2021 approximately 550,000 Floridians have flipped their voter registration status. Republicans likewise benefitted by a two-to-one margin over Democrats who’ve flipped their registrations. This helps explain why there are fewer registered Democrats in Florida today than a couple of years ago today – despite Florida’s overall population growing at the fastest rate in the country. Questions remain about how much longer trends can remain this favorable for Republicans in this state, however with Governor DeSantis now a presidential contender, the catalysts which led to this political phenomenon are likely to remain as part of the national conversation and could continue to produce similar results to what we’ve seen over the previous three years.