Q&A of the Day – Putting Florida’s voter registration trends in perspective
Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
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Today’s entry: Gillum created ACORN 2.0 similar to Obama’s organizing pet that was plagued by voter fraud/intimidation that promoted socialist class hatred and class warfare in Illinois. With those numbers in seems they’ve made up for the loss of election supervisors FL GOP???
Bottom Line: This note comes on back of my Monday story breaking down Florida’s voting registration by party,showing Democrats outpacing Republicans in new registrations year over year for the first time in over a year. I hear your concerns, that Andrew Gillum’s voter registration organization, Forward Florida, is outpacing Republican efforts on the ground...it’s possible but before jumping to conclusions let’s hit the reset button. Here’s what we know.
- Democrats added nearly 21k more voters year over year than Republicans in Florida
- Republicans outpaced Democrats every month in 2018
- Democrats held their smallest voter advantage in Florida on record entering 2020
- Republicans have made significant gains since the 2016 election
Three of those four points are positive for Republicans and one month doesn’t make a trend. Consider this...
- Through January, Republicans have added 84,568 more voters than Democrats in Florida since Election Day 2016.
And of course, Donald Trump won Florida in 2016. That’s a strong three-year trend that isn’t undone by one month’s worth of registration gains by Democrats. Next, it makes sense that there would be a potential surge of registrations for Democrats, as opposed Republicans in January. With the looming deadline to register to be able to participate in the Presidential primary in March, would-be Democrat voters had motivation to register in January that Republicans didn’t. Another dynamic I’ve heard from a few listeners that’s interesting, is strategically registering as a Democrat for the primary. With Trump assured victory, I’ve been told some registered or changed registration to participate in the Democrat’s primary. I don’t put a lot of weight into it, but it’s evidently happened to a certain extent.
As for Gillum’s group, he claims to have registered approximately 100,000 new voters. Entering December, Politico’s review of Forward Florida,showed fewer than 30,000 new registrations. It’s unclear how big the impact of the organization has been. Here’s something to consider in terms of statewide reach. Republicans have added more voters than Democrats in 46 of Florida’s 67 counties. This includes Miami-Dade for the first time on record. We’ll see where this story goes from here, but despite the Democrat’s gains in January – there's no question Republicans are better positioned than they were four years ago at this point in the cycle in Florida.