Donald Trump

Mary Ellen Klas, Tribune News Service

The Florida Democratic Party insists the state is in play in November, and that Donald Trump could lose there, delivering a fatal blow to his campaign. It’s quite a boast from a party that trails Republicans in voter registration by 940,000 voters, lost every statewide office in 2022 and saw Republicans win a supermajority in both houses of the Legislature. But nearly 40 years ago, the Florida GOP was in a similar situation and turned things around. In 1988, Democrats had a 902,000-voter registration advantage and, despite the lopsided numbers, George H.W. Bush won the state, defeating Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis in 66 of the state’s 67 counties. Could the odds be in Democrats’ favor in 2024? Few pundits consider Florida a true swing state. But after two years of Governor Ron DeSantis pushing his extremist agenda, including one of the toughest abortion bans in the country, and policies curtailing the teaching of Black history and gender identity, there’s a case to be made that Florida voters have had enough of the Republican Party’s obsession with culture wars. That may pay off for Democrats at the ballot box.

A recent Fox News poll found, for example, that DeSantis and Republicans are widely out of sync with voters’ views on abortion. According to the poll, 69% of those surveyed said they support an amendment to the state’s constitution that would establish the right to an abortion up until fetal viability, or to protect the patient’s health. It’s a resounding rejection of the six-week ban rammed into law by DeSantis and the Republican-dominated legislature last year. DeSantis’ popularity also has plummeted since his failed presidential campaign. An April Morning Consult poll found the governor had a disapproval rating of 44%, one of the highest of any state leader in the nation.

Florida voters, many of them transplants from other places, are traditionally independent thinkers. They have a long history of splitting their ballots between personality politics and issue-oriented policies. In the last 20 years, voters have repeatedly elected conservative Republicans for governor while also voting for liberal-leaning constitutional amendments that raised the minimum wage, provided for environmental conservation, limited class size, legalised medical marijuana and banned oil drilling. In 1988, voters demonstrated that party affiliation was no bellwether for voting performance. Democrats controlled both the Legislature and cabinet offices. Bob Graham, a left-leaning moderate, was governor, and Southern Democrats, repelled by their party’s liberal shift, were steadily voting with Reagan Republicans. This year, after having been written off by the state’s Republicans and Donald Trump, Florida Democrats did something no party in the state has accomplished in nearly half a century. It fielded candidates for each of the state’s 140 legislative seats on the ballot this year, and all 28 congressional races.

“We’re going to make Republicans spend money defending their dangerous and unpopular policies and make sure that Democrats, independents and even moderate Republicans know they have another option,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said at a news conference last week. Democrats attribute the “extreme agenda” of DeSantis and Republican legislators for their success in recruiting candidates. They say that the MAGA base comprises a majority of Republicans, which make up only 39% of all Floridian voters. And most voters want leaders who will tackle issues that have been largely ignored by the GOP: the soaring cost of homeowner’s insurance, housing scarcity, failing sewer and water infrastructure and massive labour shortages. The practical implications of Democrats competing for every state office in November are obvious. All voters will have a choice. Republicans are being forced to compete in districts they thought they had gerrymandered so completely that no Democrat would run. And with a robust lineup of candidates, Democrats stand a greater chance of motivating voters — including non-affiliated voters who now make up 26% of the state’s electorate — to turn the election into a referendum on the GOP agenda across the board.

Many Republicans are also searching for an alternative to Trump. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley earned nearly 14% of the Republican primary vote in Florida even after she had ended her campaign. Recent polls show that Republican support for Trump in the state may also be slipping. A FAU/Mainstreet poll this month found that Trump’s lead over President Joe Biden had dropped from 9 to 5 percentage points. And a Fox News poll showed that Trump’s margin was only 4 percentage points. His lead is also weakened by the announcement that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. qualified to appear on the state’s ballot in November. It’s too early to consider these polls predictive, and 2024 is not 1988. Republicans achieved their voter registration advantage this cycle by luring like-minded conservatives to the party during the Covid lockdowns and then aggressively culling state voter rolls of low-propensity voters, leaving more active Republicans registered than Democrats.