

ABC Information Picture Illustration / Win McNamee / Getty Pictures
In his presidential marketing campaign, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has pitched himself as a transformational chief who has reshaped the politics of his residence state. His 2022 reelection by 19 proportion factors “was not only a huge victory,” he has argued. “It was actually a basic realignment of Florida from being a swing state to being a pink state.” And most political evaluation agrees that the Sunshine State, as soon as recognized for its impossibly shut elections, is now a comfortably Republican-leaning state.
Nevertheless it’s unclear how a lot credit score DeSantis himself deserves for this shift — or if it even counts as a realignment in any respect. Probably the most outstanding argument in his favor, that Republicans have moved to the state because of his COVID-19 insurance policies, is tough to show. His funding within the state GOP seems to have paid actual dividends, however a number of different components contributed to that push’s success. He in all probability didn’t have a lot to do with one other one among Florida Republicans’ greatest accomplishments over the previous few years: their inroads with Hispanic voters.
And eventually, there’s appreciable doubt over whether or not DeSantis’s premise — that Florida will proceed to be a secure Republican state going ahead — is even right. The information suggests DeSantis’s 2022 rout was a historic outlier, pushed by a large partisan turnout hole, and it’s unwise to make sweeping pronouncements primarily based on only one election.
‘Political refugees’ may not be such a game-changer
Ask many Florida Republicans, they usually’ll inform you Florida has gotten redder as a result of DeSantis’s well-known opposition to COVID-19 restrictions throughout the pandemic drew anti-lockdown Republicans to the state in droves. “COVID, and Gov. DeSantis’s insurance policies that have been applied throughout COVID, is for my part chargeable for the deeper shade of pink that Florida has now grow to be,” stated Justin Sayfie, a outstanding Florida Republican political marketing consultant.
The issue with this principle is that Florida’s inhabitants was already increasing even earlier than COVID-19 hit. It’s true that the pandemic had a very huge affect on Florida: In line with American Group Survey estimates, 674,740 individuals moved to Florida from a unique state or the District of Columbia in 2021, the most important inflow of home migrants into any state. However by Florida’s requirements, it wasn’t that uncommon. Whereas the 2021 uptick was an even bigger quantity than any 12 months from 2011 to 2019, it was per the overall development of increasingly individuals transferring to Florida as the last decade wore on. And solely 73,129 extra home migrants moved to Florida in 2021 than in 2019, earlier than the pandemic.
After all, these newcomers to the Sunshine State might be qualitatively totally different from their pre-pandemic predecessors: extra Republican, extra ideologically motivated. Sayfie says that, anecdotally, a number of current transplants have instructed him that they moved to flee COVID-19 restrictions. “The explanation they’re coming is that they’re political refugees. They’re looking for refuge from the insurance policies of their residence states.”
However all of the outdated causes individuals moved to Florida earlier than the pandemic didn’t go away in a single day, both. We couldn’t discover a scientific ballot asking individuals why they moved to Florida, however the Tampa Bay Occasions put out an open name for solutions to that query in 2022, and the most typical responses have been decrease taxes, reasonably priced housing costs and good climate. That’s per analysis that has discovered that most individuals who transfer accomplish that for monetary, not political causes. (To make certain, “decrease taxes” counts as a political cause to maneuver — however it’s not one which DeSantis can take credit score for, because the state structure has banned private earnings taxes since 1968.)
Just a few respondents to the Tampa Bay Occasions did cite coronavirus restrictions as a cause for his or her transfer, so it’s doable that a number of the enhance in migration from 2019 to 2021 was due to DeSantis’s insurance policies. Alternatively, a number of respondents additionally cited their newfound skill to work remotely, which is one other doable clarification for the 2021 spike. Total, it’s powerful to say with any confidence that DeSantis’s COVID-19 coverage induced a big variety of individuals to maneuver to the state who wouldn’t have executed so in any other case, a lot much less an inflow of latest residents that was giant sufficient to alter the state’s political composition.
DeSantis has executed quite a lot of party-building
DeSantis in all probability had extra of an affect on Florida’s political hue by investing in marketing campaign subject operations to develop the state GOP. There are at present 525,418 extra registered Republican voters in Florida than there have been on the finish of 2018, and a few of that progress might be credited to DeSantis. Shortly after his 2019 inauguration, he directed the state GOP to concentrate on registering extra Republican voters. The GOP’s internet enhance of greater than 40,000 voters that 12 months was the celebration’s greatest achieve within the 12 months earlier than a presidential election this century. Then, in 2020, the celebration added a contemporary report of almost half 1,000,000 voters on internet. In 2021, DeSantis contributed $2 million to the registration push, and it paid off that November, when the variety of registered Republicans ultimately surpassed the variety of registered Democrats. Lastly, in 2022, amid DeSantis’s reelection marketing campaign, the GOP capped off a powerful quadrennium by including 188,323 Republicans to the rolls on internet. You guessed it: That was probably the most for a midterm 12 months in not less than 20 years.
However as useful as DeSantis was to those efforts, he can’t take full credit score. Because the chart above makes clear, Republicans had been closing the registration hole with Democrats for fairly a while — and their efforts actually went into overdrive beginning in 2016, a few years earlier than DeSantis got here on the scene. Former President Donald Trump’s marketing campaign in all probability deserves kudos for the dramatic enhance in Republican registration in each 2016 and 2020.
And of their quest to take the lead in celebration registration, Republicans acquired the most important help from an unlikely supply: Democrats. Along with these 525,418 extra registered Republicans, Florida additionally has 299,808 fewer registered Democrats than it did on the finish of 2018 — regardless of the state’s inhabitants progress. The Florida Democratic Get together has, for years, been in shambles, they usually have been unable to put money into the type of registration efforts essential to fight pure attrition from the voter rolls. If the celebration had merely been in a position to maintain regular on the 5,315,954 registered voters it had on the finish of 2020, registered Democrats would nonetheless outnumber Republicans statewide — regardless of DeSantis’s finest efforts.
Hispanic voters didn’t swing simply due to DeSantis
You can also’t discuss in regards to the GOP’s current dominance in Florida with out speaking in regards to the vital inroads they’ve made amongst Latinos. In line with Catalist, a Democratic-aligned knowledge agency that makes use of the voter file to investigate previous elections, Hispanic assist for Florida Democrats cratered in 2022. Former Rep. Charlie Crist, Democrats’ gubernatorial nominee, acquired simply 44 p.c of the Hispanic vote. Against this, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton obtained 66 p.c of the Hispanic vote as not too long ago because the 2016 presidential race. That’s an enormous deal in a state whose citizen voting-age inhabitants is 21 p.c Hispanic.
Nevertheless it’s laborious to say that Hispanic voters are transferring proper due to DeSantis. For one factor, the Republican shift began effectively earlier than the 2022 marketing campaign. In 2020, President Biden acquired simply 50 p.c of the Hispanic vote in Florida, in line with Catalist, which accounts for a lot of the drop between 2016 and 2022. If anybody deserves credit score for this, it’s in all probability Trump, who appealed to Hispanic voters together with his personal push to reopen the financial system throughout the pandemic, in addition to with focused outreach to Florida’s various Hispanic communities. And naturally, Latinos’ rightward swing is a nationwide phenomenon, not only a Florida one. Nationally, Hispanic assist for Democrats fell from 71 p.c in 2016 to 62 p.c in each 2020 and 2022.
That stated, Latinos did proceed to maneuver towards Republicans between 2020 and 2022 in Florida when they didn’t accomplish that nationally. That would have been because of DeSantis, or it may have been as a result of Florida’s Hispanic inhabitants is exclusive (whereas most Latinos nationally are Mexican American, Florida’s Hispanic neighborhood principally consists of individuals of Cuban, Puerto Rican and South American descent, who could have totally different political priorities).
Or there may not have been motion in any respect, and Republicans ended up with greater assist amongst Latinos in 2022 just because many Hispanic Democrats in Florida simply didn’t hassle turning out to vote in 2022. In line with Florida Democratic knowledge analyst Matthew Isbell, there have been 959,980 Latinos registered as Democrats in Florida on the time of the 2022 election, versus simply 728,027 who have been registered as Republicans. However solely about one-third of these Hispanic Democrats really voted, in contrast with greater than half of Hispanic Republicans, which meant that the precise citizens contained extra Hispanic Republicans than Hispanic Democrats. In different phrases, quite a lot of DeSantis’s success with Latinos in 2022 was resulting from disparities in turnout.
Florida may not be that pink anyway
Dive into the turnout numbers for 2022 and a good larger drawback for DeSantis’s narrative emerges. A number of DeSantis’s success throughout the board was resulting from disparities in turnout. Total, Isbell discovered that 63.4 p.c of Florida’s registered Republicans forged a poll in 2022, however solely 48.6 p.c of its registered Democrats did. That 14.8-point turnout hole was manner out of line with the 2016, 2018 and 2020 elections in Florida.
2022 noticed an enormous partisan turnout hole in Florida
Share of Democratic registered voters who forged a poll versus the share of Republican registered voters who forged a poll, in Florida normal elections since 2012
Election | Dem. Turnout | GOP Turnout | Hole |
---|---|---|---|
2012 | 72.0% | 78.0% | R+5.9 |
2014 | 50.1 | 60.4 | R+10.3 |
2016 | 74.2 | 81.1 | R+6.9 |
2018 | 64.4 | 71.0 | R+6.5 |
2020 | 77.2 | 83.8 | R+6.5 |
2022 | 48.6 | 63.4 | R+14.8 |
Neglect the query of whether or not DeSantis deserves credit score for Florida’s swing to the precise — this raises the query of how a lot Florida has swung in any respect. In spite of everything, 2022 was just one election, and historical past is rife with examples of landslide victories in swing states that didn’t completely change the states’ political nature. (Take Nevada, which reelected then-Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval by 47 factors in 2014 in between voting for then-President Barack Obama by 7 factors in 2012 and Clinton by 2 factors in 2016.) There may be proof that Florida has been drifting towards Republicans lately, however that development predates DeSantis, and there was no signal earlier than 2022 that it might grow to be a state the place Republicans win by 19 factors with any regularity.
Florida is a pink state, however not that pink
How Florida has voted in presidential and gubernatorial elections since 2000
12 months | Workplace | Dem. | GOP | Margin |
---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | President | 48.8% | 48.9% | R+0.0 |
2002 | Governor | 43.2 | 56.0 | R+12.9 |
2004 | President | 47.1 | 52.1 | R+5.0 |
2006 | Governor | 45.1 | 52.2 | R+7.1 |
2008 | President | 50.9 | 48.1 | D+2.8 |
2010 | Governor | 47.7 | 48.9 | R+1.2 |
2012 | President | 49.9 | 49.0 | D+0.9 |
2014 | Governor | 47.1 | 48.1 | R+1.1 |
2016 | President | 47.4 | 48.6 | R+1.2 |
2018 | Governor | 49.2 | 49.6 | R+0.4 |
2020 | President | 47.8 | 51.1 | R+3.4 |
2022 | Governor | 40.0 | 59.4 | R+19.4 |
Given all of the proof, it appears extra seemingly that DeSantis is “simply” a robust candidate with a robust political operation than a politician who has basically reshaped Florida politics. Even Sayfie, who does imagine DeSantis has helped make Florida considerably redder, thinks 2022 will show to be an outlier. DeSantis acquired further credit score from voters due to his anti-lockdown insurance policies throughout the pandemic, he stated, that future Republican candidates received’t profit from. “That excellent political storm is not going to occur once more.”