The deadline to register to vote in Florida’s next presidential election is still nearly a year away, but that’s much too soon for Democrats.
Florida Democrats are at a historically low point in voter registration compared to Republicans and independents. Based on current trends and historic turnout patterns that favor the GOP, it looks mathematically impossible for Joe Biden to win Florida’s 30 electoral votes next November.
Unless Democrats reverse course quickly, you can probably pencil in Florida for Donald Trump right now. Trump 30, Biden 0.
For Democrats statewide, the picture looks dire. In the latest figures from the Division of Elections, Florida has nearly 14 million voters. Republicans account for 5.2 million, or 37.4%, and Democrats account for 4.6 million, or 33.2%. Voters who have no party affiliation or belong to minor parties make up the remaining 4 million or 29.4%. It’s the first time in Florida history that these no-party affiliation voters passed the 4 million mark. That’s a lot of voters who want nothing to do with either party.
A growing GOP advantage
Through Aug. 31, the statewide Republican advantage in voters was 588,930. That’s nearly the equivalent of the entire voter roll of Pinellas, the state’s seventh largest county.
That’s great for Republicans but terrible for Democrats. It will change only with an unprecedented drive to register voters, a labor-intensive task at which Democrats have historically done poorly.
As Sun Sentinel political writer Anthony Man reports, this realignment has been underway in Florida for a long time.
For decades, what used to be called conservative, reliable “yellow dog” Democrats in North Florida have voted Republican, first for president and more recently for governor and Congress.
Dig deeper into the numbers and it looks worse. The number of Democrats statewide is about the same as it was in 2010, or 4.6 million, in spite of Florida’s phenomenal growth. Somehow, the GOP figured it out: There are 1.2 million more Republicans now than in 2010, the year Rick Scott was elected governor. Republicans are multiplying in Florida. Democrats are disappearing.
Red flags, even in Broward
Broward remains the state’s most strongly Democratic county, but red flags are flying there, too.
In 2010, Democrats made up 52.5% of all Broward voters. The percentage has slipped to 46.6%, mainly due to steady growth in the number of NPAs — voters with no party affiliation. Old-timers remember that Broward was a bastion of Republicanism before the condo boom of the 1970s.
Democrats still dominate, but nearly one of every three voters in Broward is now registered as NPA, the highest ever. In the four weeks ending Oct. 6, 772 people joined the Broward roll as NPA voters, according to the county supervisor of elections. The voter roll shows that, geographically and demographically, they’re from all over: An 18-year-old woman from Sunrise. A 36-year-old Hispanic man from Miramar. A 52-year-old man from Lauderhill.
Beyond Broward, the combined totals of unaffiliated and minor-party voters now outnumber Democrats in 21 Florida counties. The latest county to join the trend was Seminole County, north of Orlando.
The steady NPA growth has profound and troubling political implications.
Florida is a closed primary state: Only Republicans and Democrats can vote in most primary elections. NPAs are shut out. We oppose closed primaries and we supported a 2020 ballot initiative that would allow all voters to cast ballots in primaries, but it got 57% of the vote, short of the 60% required to pass. Supporters should try again.
Closed primaries perpetuate an archaic system that encourages hyperpartisanship, with candidates appealing to left and right extremes. That’s bad for democracy. NPA voters in Florida are too numerous to ignore.
A shifting political map
Of 67 counties in Florida, only 10 of any size have Democratic pluralities: Alachua, Broward, Duval, Gadsden, Hillsborough, Leon, Miami-Dade, Orange, Osceola and Palm Beach.
But voter registration tells only half the story. Republicans are much more likely to vote than Democrats, and Democrats are more apt to cross party lines than Republicans. Look at the last election.
In the race for governor in 2022, Democrat Charlie Crist won only five of those 10 Democratic counties, as Republican Ron DeSantis coasted to a 19-point victory. DeSantis won the other five, including Palm Beach (by 3 percentage points), Miami-Dade (+11), Duval (+12), Osceola (+7) and Hillsborough (+9).
Hillsborough, anchored by Tampa, is an intriguing part of this story. A base of union labor and immigrants, it was once a vital cog in the Democratic turnout machine.
But in the past year alone, the number of Democrats there declined by 15%, or 50,700 people, from 341,601 to 291,901, according to county and state records. In Hillsborough, Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to be labeled “inactive” for not voting, a status easily remedied by contacting the elections office.
This has to change, and Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried says her party is fully focused on registering new voters. The party now has a full-time director of voter registration, Kristellys Estanga, a Venezuelan-American strategist with deep experience in campaigns, organizing and advocacy.
“After 2022, Republicans expected us to wave the white flag, but we’re doing just the opposite,” said Fried, whose stated goal is to reduce the Republican advantage in registration by 35% by the end of next year.
For the sake of competitive elections and Florida’s future, she’d better be right. But the numbers keep telling us a very different story.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.
