Florida's’ Political Makeup & Hurricane Season’s Start - Top 3 Takeaways – June 4th, 2024
- And then there were 10...as in only ten counties in state of Florida that still have Democrat majorities by way of voter registration. As we’re now just five months away from Election Day Florida’s new status as a red state continues to perpetuate as the state’s latest voter registration information reflecting all of Florida’s registered voters as of the start of May has produced yet another record Republican advantage. Just how big is the advantage? There are now more than 900k registered Republicans than Democrats in the state Florida. That’s pretty remarkable when you consider that Democrats still held a voter registration advantage in this state on Election Day four years ago...and at the current pace there’s a chance we could be closing in on a million-vote advantage for the GOP by Election Day. In what’s a huge statement on the sign of the times for the Democrat Party in the state of Florida, despite this being a presidential election year when we tend to see a surge in new voter registrations (which we have seen for Republicans and NPA’s), Democrats continue to shed voters by the month – dropping over 10k voters in the past month alone. And that wasn’t all that Democrats dropped in Florida. They also dropped their voter registration advantage in yet another county. In my previous voter registration update I had this to say... Two counties to watch which are close to flipping – Hillsborough and Madison. Should the current pace of changes in voter registration keep up, they could flip before Election Day in November. Well one of them already did flip well in advance of Election Day. North Florida’s Madison County flipped to a Republican majority for the first time in the county’s history leaving...
- A record low 10 of Florida’s 67 counties with Democrat majorities remaining. And as for Hillsborough, the state’s third most populous county (having recently passed PBC for #3), there are only about 11-thousand voters separating the two parties. With only five months to go it's a tale of two political parties in Florida and all indications are pointing in one direction – an impressive red wave that Republican candidates top to bottom are positioned to ride yet again. Following the record red wave in 2022’s election cycle in Florida a record number of Republicans were elected top to bottom across the state. Many politicos thought that would be the political peak for Florida’s GOP. But the signs are pointing towards something we don’t see in Florida. There are potential political tsunamis in Florida’s future should these voter registration trends hold.
- As good as it gets. As hurricane season has kicked off it’s done so following the most ominous preseason hurricane forecasting we’ve had. From NOAA to AccuWeather, Colorado State University to the Weather Channel their forecasts were virtually all the same...that this year’s hurricane season will be one of the most active on record. Also, that Florida’s the most at risk state of all. As a pragmatist who’s covered every hurricane that’s threatened the Southeast since Floyd in 1999, I view the season the way I view all other aspects of life. It’s about controlling what we can control and not worrying too much about the rest. I don’t love the way this hurricane season has set up either, with record air temps throughout May and near record water temps coinciding with a La Nina weather pattern. If I dabbled in hurricane forecasting, which I don’t, I’m sure I’d think it’d be especially active too. But the fact of the matter is that this side of God nobody really knows what will happen months from now. But we do know what’s not happening right now. Any tropical formation. For all the alarming preseason hurricane forecasts, we made it into hurricane season without a preseason storm for only the second time within the past ten years. That’s a win. And at least in terms of tropical formation so is this. There’s a Sarhan dust cloud that still spans the entire length of the Atlantic and there’s no sign it’s coming to an end anytime soon. When you read the hurricane forecasts, you’ll frequently see references to increases in activity being attributed to climate change. But in the context of potential tropical activity, it’s not just the water temps that are impacted by climate change, it’s what’s in the air too. Hotter temperatures in Africa have led to more consistent and larger amounts of Saharan dust coming off the African coast. It has the potential to act as a counterweight of sorts as there’s nothing about high levels of dust that’s conducive to tropical formation. That’s potentially the reason that we’ve not had any activity to date and if by chance it turns out to be a better-than-expected hurricane season it’ll likely be the reason why. For now, within the first week of hurricane season, the National Hurricane Center’s website currently shows that: Tropical cyclone activity is not expected during the next 7 days. No preseason storms. No storms on the horizon. That’s as good as it gets.