Tipsheet

Red Rising: Florida GOP Registration Advantage Over Democrats Rises To...

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  June 21, 2023 10:15 AM

When Barack Obama won Florida just over a decade ago, Democratic registrants outnumbered Republicans in the Sunshine State by around 800,000.  Republicans remained competitive because of strong turnout and support from independents, but they grappled with this structural disadvantage.  During the DeSantis governorship, the red and blue lines crossed, with GOP registrations edging into the lead.  By early 2022, Florida Republicans' registration advantage pushed into six figures.  By last fall's Election Day, it had swelled even further, setting the table for an epic, dominant GOP sweep.

While the national red wave was a dud of historic proportions, with a handful of exceptions, the Florida red wave resulted in achievements of historic proportions.  DeSantis expanded his fractional 2018 general election victory margin from a little more than 30,000 raw votes to more than 1.5 million raw votes.  He won by nearly 20 percentage points -- unheard-of dominance, flipping multiple blue counties into the red column, and carrying key demographic groups among whom Republican candidates have struggled in recent cycles.  And the gains keep coming:


Approaching half-a-million.  Talk about reversing a structural disadvantage.  This is part of the case Team DeSantis is leveraging to emphasize electability in a general election setting.  The Trump campaign has been touting some polls showing their candidate not only leading the primary field by a long shot, but also ahead of Biden.  Other polling shows Trump atop the GOP field, but trailing or tied with Biden -- the strikingly unpopular president who most voters see as too old for the job.  A new national survey shows erosion among Republican voters, and a far weaker picture for the former president, in terms of the electorate's post-indictment mood:

Most Americans approve of Trump’s indictment stemming from his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office, even as 71% say politics played a role in that charging decision. Though Trump continues to lead the GOP field by a wide margin in the race for the Republican Party’s nomination for president, the poll suggests that his support has declined, as have positive views of him among Republican and Republican-leaning voters. Nearly a quarter now say they would not consider backing his candidacy under any circumstances...Overall, 47% of Republicans and Republican-leaning registered voters say Trump is their first choice for the party’s nomination for president, down from 53% in a May CNN poll. Support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held steady at 26% in the latest poll, with former Vice President Mike Pence at 9%, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley at 5%, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott at 4%, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 3% and the remaining candidates at 1% or less. 

In addition to the decline in support for Trump’s candidacy, his favorability rating among Republican-aligned voters has dipped, from 77% in May to 67% now...Few in the GOP want to see Trump drummed out of the race or repudiated by his party in response to the indictment...Outside of the Republican Party, though, these charges are broadly viewed as disqualifying. Among all Americans, 59% say that Trump ought to end his campaign now that he’s facing federal charges...Overall, even as 61% of Americans approve of the decision to indict the former president, majorities across party lines believe politics played a role in the decision to charge him, including 53% of Democrats, 67% of independents and 92% of Republicans...67% of independents [approve of the federal charges].

In this poll, two-thirds of independent voters say that politics played a role in the charges, yet the exact same percentage of independents still support the charges.  They're willing to say, yes, politics is a part of this, but we are glad it happened anyway.  Nearly six-in-ten American voters overall support the charges, even as Republicans are heavily opposed.  Does the target of said charges seem like someone who is well-positioned to win a rematch election against a candidate to whom he's already lost?  Or is better positioned than others in his party to do so?  The DeSantis campaign is pointing to their data in critical swing states showing Trump in familiar holes:


I tend to believe most polling this far out is generally garbage, although Trump vs. Biden hypotheticals aren't so hypothetical. There are various scenarios I can envision in which Trump may improve upon his 2020 performance if he wins the nomination, such as a recession arriving in the election year (a distinct possibility). But if this is how he handles important persuasion opportunities, he's not serious about winning key voting blocs back -- apparently because he thinks he doesn't have to:

Recommended

CNN's Van Jones Explodes Over Trump’s Defense Secretary Pick Sarah Arnold
Thanks to Tim Walz, Kamala Lost This Key State Sarah Arnold


If you're among the people who will respond to this with, "well he did win," you are of course entitled to that opinion.  But Trump's legal team never even came close to proving it in court -- and sometimes didn't even try when presented with chances to do so.  Joe Biden is president.  And Trump's unproven claims are anathema to most of the very people who Republicans need to win over or win back in 2024.  Opinions, including unfounded ones, are fine.  But if the goal is to win elections, it's better to deal with facts than feelings.  The facts are that Trump lost in 2020 and the people who will determine the winner next time believe that Trump lost in 2020.  Many of them personally contributed to that loss because they were tired of the type of nonsense above, which feels to them like a powerful invitation to make the same decision again.  

Trump was handed an easy layup of a question on a silver platter, and he decided to knock the platter to the floor and demand that people focus a wildly unpopular grievance narrative that didn't survive real scrutiny.  That's certainly a choice.  And Republican voters will have their own choice next year: Whether they want to go with this again.  Speaking of choices, I'll leave you with this juxtaposition, which the DeSantis campaign is understandably eager to put directly in front of conservative voters:


Trump can't stop lying about Florida, once again putting him on the same page as his friend Gavin Newsom.  Trump is welcome to make his case without leveling deeply false attacks on the state of Florida and the successful conservative governance that has made it a beacon, and without making common cause with California's failing left-wing governor.  He's choosing to do those things anyway.  Choices, all around.