Q&A of the day – Florida voter migration trends
It’s the Q&A of the day. Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
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Here’s today’s question…
How do we as Floridians convince those relocating to tax friendly states (Florida, Texas, Tennessee) to not bring their Liberal Voting standards and thought process with them???
We can talk until we are “Blue” in the face (no pun intended) and present facts. But quite honestly, Trump Derangement Syndrome is extremely prevalent in Blue States and will affect House and Senate races significantly in Red States.
Bottom Line: During the election cycle last year I brought you a series of voter registration trends in Florida. All of them defied the conventional wisdom that the influx of new voters would result in waves of new Democrats voting in future elections. As a refresher – 60% of Florida registered voters were Democrats in 1980. By 2016 that margin was down to just 38%. In advance of the 2018 midterms that margin was down to 37% for Democrats with the smallest voter registration advantage over Republicans in our state’s history for a general election cycle. What was the result?
Republicans hold both US Senate seats and the Governor’s seat for the first time since 1868. That takes me back to your question. There’s this inherent concern that because we have a constant influx of new residents, commonly from “blue” states, that they’ll necessarily bring their politics with them. But it’s also one that plays on stereo types as much as reality.
Just take the voter registration info from January as the latest example. In January Florida added 12,719 voters. Here’s the breakout of registration by party:
- Democrats: -1,066
- Republicans: +3,684
- Minor party: +3,278
- No party: +6,823
Surprised? Point is it’s easy to operate on a series of assumptions based on where people seem to be relocating from as they move into Florida. We also will often assume that if someone is coming from the North East, they must be liberal. There’s some of that sure and our opinions can be somewhat jaded in South Florida, but when you look around the state and at election outcomes and voter registration trends – it's not what you might be inclined to think or what most media outlets assume.