Q&A of the Day – What’s Behind the Significant Decline in Democrats in Florida?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s Entry: Hi Brian thanks for always delivering interesting insights. I enjoy your regular voter registration updates. It’s good to know what’s happening with political trends outside of political cycles and I do hope the changes in SFL continue to bring about more interested candidates in local elections next year who’ve sat on the sidelines in the past. Something I’m interested in knowing is how much of the decline in Democrat registrations this year is due to those moving vs switching party registration. Also there have been stories about Democrats not being as likely to renew their vote-by-mail status, is that true? Thanks!
Bottom Line: Those are excellent questions which may provide somewhat surprising answers. To set the stage in answering those questions let’s first hit the reset button with what we recently learned from the mid-year report from the Florida Division of Elections as they reconciled voter rolls statewide. The most recent reporting has provided the update for all eligible voter registrations through June. These are the year-to-date voter registration changes information:
- DEM: -206,697
- GOP: -48,853
- NPA/Other: -98,897
The current breakout of registered voters looks like this on a percentage basis...
- DEM: 33.3%
- GOP: 37.1%
- NPA/Other: 29.6%
As I mentioned in my initial reporting, voter registrations dropped significantly across the board in June as voter rolls reflected a purging of registered voters which moved out-of-state, become inactive, or died. The combination of the cleaning up of voter rolls, along with the lack of a catalyst with newly relocated or age eligible voters in a non-election year, led to nearly 250k fewer voters overall. But as illustrated, the losses were far from equitable. While NPA losses were greatest – Democrats suffered one of the worst months in its history by way of voter registrations. The net result is yet another record Republican voter advantage within the state.
When breaking down what happened with these voters, we can look to another monthly update that’s provided by the Florida Division of Elections. The “New and Removed” voter registration report. Voters removed from voter rolls fall into two categories. “Removed-Active” and “Removed-Inactive". In describing what those categories represent here’s the breakdown:
Removed-Active – the number of active voters who were removed because:
- Voter was determined to be ineligible (e.g., adjudication of mental incapacity without voting rights restored, felony conviction without voting rights restored, death, not a U.S. citizen, did not list a valid Florida residence, determined to be fictitious person)
- Voter moved out of state and either the voter or the out-of-state election official notifies the State or the Supervisor of Elections
- Voter asked in writing to be removed from the rolls
Removed–Inactive – the number of inactive voters removed. An inactive voter is someone for whom undeliverable mail triggered an address confirmation final notice to which the voter did not respond within 30 days or which came back undeliverable. When that happens, the voter is designated as inactive. If after two (federal) general elections, the inactive voter fails to vote, change/update his or her voter registration record, or request a vote-by-mail ballot, the inactive voter is removed no later than the end of the calendar year. An inactive voter remains eligible to vote until he or she is removed from the official list of registered voters. Removal of inactive voters does not occur during the 90-day window before a federal election.
The second category, the removed-inactive is the category that pertains to the fairly new law mandating that voters renew their voter registration status after every two election cycles. While you’re right that leadership within the Democrat Party at the state and local levels has expressed regular concern over the vote-by-mail renewal process – there's very little evidence it’s been much of an issue this year and it most certainly doesn’t explain the record-setting decline in Democrat voter registrations that’s occurred through the first half of the year in Florida. While the state provides the monthly information for the voters removed based on active and inactive status, what they don’t do is specifically detail how many voters were removed due to each of those or what party those previously registered voters belonged to. With that said here’s the breakout of voters removed who were active vs. inactive:
- Active: 95%
- Inactive: 5%
What this shows is that of the greater than 200k Democrat defectors year-to-date in Florida, nearly 197k have been removed because they moved out-of-state, reregistered in another party or unregistered to vote, died or became ineligible due to a felony. Fewer than 10 thousand of the losses are due to voters not reupping their vote-by-mail status. What’s interesting is that despite 2023 being an off-election year, Florida’s still pacing the fewest newly registered voters that the state has experienced since 2017. This would seemingly indicate that part of the decline in Democrat registrations is due to a reluctance by those moving here or that are becoming age eligible to register to vote. There’s no doubt that will change entering next year’s presidential election cycle – but should President Joe Biden be the Democrat nominee, one wonders to what extent in Florida where he’s exceedingly unpopular.