Florida’s Red Waves - Top 3 Takeaways – April 12th, 2024
- Florida’s red waves. In recent years red waves have come in two forms in our state. Based on your political preference, one’s been good, and one’s been bad or... both have been bad. One has been the result of red tide, which regardless of your political positioning is never a good thing. The other, has of course, been of a political nature. Republicans have had complete control of Florida’s state government for 25 years, but it wasn’t until recent years that red waves happened in Florida’s politics. Three of the last four election cycles Republicans have set records for the number of elected officials top to bottom within the state (2016, 2020, 2022). And each of those waves has proved to be bigger than the one before it. It could be argued that if there’s such a thing as a political tsunami that exists, what happened in Florida in the 2022 midterm election cycle would be it. Not only were there a record number of Republicans elected top to bottom in Florida, but races were commonly won by record margins – starting with Governor DeSantis’ reelection. Making the election outcomes in Florida even more impressive was that it didn’t happen elsewhere. As in anywhere else. You couldn’t find more than a Republican ripple elsewhere. At the time even many on the right pontificated that it was likely a high-water mark for Republicans in Florida. A unique set of circumstances brought about by a governor who effectively led the state through a once in a century pandemic. At the time it was a rational argument. It just might prove to have been the wrong argument. Being the data dork that I am, I’m always studying history, numbers, trends and patterns. Most people, even those who cover politics for a living, don’t pay much attention to voter registration trends between election cycles. I do, because they’ve been historically predictive. For example, over the previous twenty-three years, covering 12 election cycles (starting with 2000) - there are only two cycles in which Democrats gained ground on Republicans. What were those two cycles? 2008 and 2012. Both cycles in which Florida voted for a Democrat (Barack Obama) at the top of the ticket. In all other cycles, which were won by Republicans, voter registration trends favored them. I began the monthly tracking of statewide and local voter registration trends to specifically try to determine whether 2022 was an outlier, a historical high-water mark, or perhaps a sign of what was to come. As I’ve illustrated as recently as this week, with Republicans continuing to set voter registration records both statewide and locally is that 2022 may very well have been...
- The sign of what’s to come. Yesterday the national pollster Emerson came out with their first polling on Florida’s statewide races this year – the Presidential and Senate races. No, April polls, in general, don’t necessarily mean much. But Emerson’s was interesting for two reasons. First, because Florida’s no longer considered the ultimate swing state, we don’t have anywhere near the level of regular polling taking place that we used to. So simply getting a baseline, a potential temperature check, about where Floridians stand today, from a national pollster is worth a look. But then there’s what the poll said. Let’s start with the senate race. Emerson showed Rick Scott leading his likely Democrat challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell by 7-points. How big of a polling lead does that appear to be for Senator Scott? A lead that’s bigger than he’s ever been shown to have had in any poll, in any election dating back to his two gubernational election wins. But wait, there’s more. I never take pollsters at face value. When analyzing polls, I compare each pollster to their record. Emerson’s final poll in Rick Scott’s initial senate win in 2018 showed Bill Nelson winning by five points. Meaning that Emerson under sampled Rick Scott’s support by a little more than five points. That additional context makes this initial polling preview that much more interesting. Then there’s the presidential race. Emerson showed Donald Trump winning the rematch with Joe Biden by not one (his margin of victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016), two or three points (the margin of victory Trump had over Joe Biden in 2020) but by 13 points! A number that even if halved would be the largest win by a presidential candidate in Florida since 1988. But wait there’s more. Emerson’s final poll in 2020 showed Joe Biden winning Florida by six. That’s right, in the previous election cycle the pollster that under sampled Trump’s actual support in Florida by nine points currently has Trump up 13. You can do the math. Given Emerson’s history of significantly understating Republican support in Florida, and given the large leads shown in their first poll in Florida, history may be made again in November. But there’s something else that’s interesting about all of this
- The timing. When the Florida Supreme Court decided to allow Florida’s 6-week limit on abortions to take effect (as of May 1st), while also allowing a proposed abortion access amendment on the ballot, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell called it “a game changer”. We’ll, I’m not sure what the score may have been in the game before the Supreme Court’s decision, but we’re being given an idea of what it is after that decision. Notably, the entire survey sample was conducted more than a week after the Supreme Court’s abortion decisions. None of this means that things can’t change before Election Day. But what it does almost certainly mean is that if the elections were today there would be another red wave in Florida – potentially the size of 2022’s tsunami.