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Q&A Of The Day – How Has South Florida’s Voter Registration Changed?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Parler & Twitter: @brianmuddradio
Today’s entry: Hey Brian, I found it interesting that Democrats have lost over 100,000 voters in Florida and no one’s mentioned it but you. How many of those 100k are in Broward? I think that’d be a big tell as to what’s going on.
Bottom Line: So, today’s note is on back of my voter registration story from Wednesday when I shared the following year-to-date changes in Florida’s voter registration:
- DEM: -110,189
- GOP: -67,020
- NPA/Other: +49,369
The net-net of it is that Florida’s lost net voters this year as the state’s reconciled voter rolls, removing voters who are no longer active or can no longer legally vote in Florida. Despite Florida’s strong population growth, the lack of a sense of urgency to register to vote in a non-election year has led to the overall loss of voters. And while NPA has been the most popular choice this year, the net-net of the partisan changes is that Democrats have lost 43,169 more voters than Republicans this year. Now, to the root of your question – you raise a good point. Broward has the largest percentage of Democrats in Florida – partisan changes there could be most indicative of a greater partisan shift. A significant part of Republican’s success in Florida last year was driven by South Florida’s Democrat strongholds- Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties all trending more towards Republicans. Is there follow through based on voter registrations this year?
Here’s the year-to-date change in each county:
- Broward
- DEM: -6,757; GOP: - 4,828 = -1,929 net DEMS
- Miami-Dade
- DEM: -14,734; GOP: -7,426 = -7,308 net DEMS
- Palm Beach
- DEM: -25,256 GOP: -15,433 = -9,823 net DEMS
The answer is clearly yes. All three counties have seen far more Democrats defecting from voter rolls than Republicans. In fact, nearly half of the total lost Democrats statewide have happened in South Florida this year as a total of 19,060 more Democrats than Republicans have been lost year-to-date. Of course, changes in voter registrations don’t necessarily equal election outcomes, as not all Democrats vote straight party tickets nor do Republicans. That being said, given Florida’s recent trend towards the right, being led by changes in voting behavior in South Florida specifically, this suggests the trend has continued through this non-election year thus far.