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Republicans Continue to Build a Bigger Advantage in Florida
Bottom Line: A new year, but similar result for voter registrations in Florida. The news continues to be positive for Republicans, while it is increasingly problematic for Florida’s Democrats. After a year in which Florida’s Democrats lost hundreds of thousands of registered voters – culminating in Republicans gaining the upper hand in registrations for the first time in our state’s history...it was more of the same in January to start this midterm election year.
These are the January changes in Florida voter registrations:
- DEM: -21,483
- GOP: +2,890
- NPA/Other: +7,654
While the most popular choice for newly registered or re-registered voters was once again none-of-the-above, Democrat defections remained the biggest story. Given Florida’s ongoing population growth and with it officially being an election year, it’s especially odd to see so many lost voters to start this year and election cycle. With gains being posted by NPA’s and Republicans it speaks to something bigger. There is currently a controversy over voter registrations. Democrats have alleged the Florida Republican Party and the Florida First PAC are behind voter registration fraud carried out in Hillsborough, Miami-Dade and Pinellas Counties. The state Republican Party has denied any improper activity. According to the allegations, numerous seniors claim they were duped into switching their voter registration from Democrat to Republican last year. Democrats are now calling for a state investigation. It’s worth noting only 5,500 Democrats in total had their voter registrations switched from Democrat to Republican, which is to say that whatever proves to be true, it doesn’t come close to explaining the registration/trends activity we’ve seen.
The current breakout of registered voters looks like this...
- DEM: 35.4%
- GOP: 35.9%
- NPA/Other: 28.7%
The Republican voter registration advantage over Democrats is now 67,475 voters. For comparison's sake, Democrats held a 97,215-voter advantage coming out of the 2020 Election Cycle. This supports the notion that Florida’s increasingly moving from being a purple state into red state territory and just in time for what’s shaping up to be a historically good midterm election cycle for Republicans.