Florida Basks in New Role as Republican Homeland

Other fast-growing, low-tax states are becoming more Democratic. Demographics explain why the Sunshine State is different.

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In many places, posing with a golden idol of a politician would be weird. In Florida, it was just another Sunday—at least if that politician is the most famous Florida Man of them all, Donald Trump.

That’s not just because Florida is enthusiastically weird; like chilled-iguanas-falling-out-of-trees-and-conking-pedestrians-on-the-head kind of weird. It’s also because Florida is the emerging capital of Red America. Like Trump himself, the GOP seems to be migrating to the Sunshine State. Seven of the 10 largest states voted for Trump in 2016. Trump won four of the seven again in 2020, but only in Florida did he increase his margin of victory. The incumbent president was seriously droopy in Texas and North Carolina and stayed about the same in Ohio, but he shone in Florida. His victory by 3.3 points was the most decisive presidential win in the state since 2004.

The golden Trump statue, more Buddha than Baal, was certainly in the right place at Orlando’s convention center this weekend. The annual Conservative Political Action Conference was held in Florida this year because organizers didn’t want to comply with pandemic restrictions in metro Washington, D.C. But the quest for permissive gathering rules seems to have brought the event to its natural home. The annual gathering for mostly young Republicans has gone from a libertarian-leaning event where Ron Paul was a perennial straw poll winner to its new incarnation as a haven for the culture-warrior populist right where Trump is, ahem, idolized. This year’s theme: “America Uncanceled.” That sounds a lot more like Central Florida than the D.C. suburbs.

Whether Trump, who crushed this year’s CPAC straw poll, runs for president again or not, there’s a pretty decent chance that in 2024 Republicans will again nominate a Floridian. Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott are all in the mix and all have sought to emulate, to varying degrees, Trump’s new nationalism. Like Ohio, its longtime swing-state partner to the north, Florida has been getting more Republican in recent cycles. Meanwhile, Southern and Western states, most notably Texas, are moving away from the GOP.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Devin H

    But as this happens more and more, while it will shore up the Republican party to win Florida reliably in national elections, it would likely hurt them in a number of others. At some point the worm is going to turn.

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    Mike B

    I still can't quite believe that, apparently without ironic intent, they set up an actual literal golden idol of Trump.

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  3. Larry Hubbard

    Lived in Tampa area 2010/2011. Yes falling lizards out of trees in S FL. Great to have your views Chris. You make me think and laugh. Keep it up.

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    Amanda

    Just as well I'll be leaving Florida forever in a year or two, then....

    Quite apart from the politics (I don't want Florida less conservative, just less Trumpy), the rapid new building has wiped out vast swathes of natural habitat, which is why I don't see bobcats and sandhill cranes any more, never mind Florida cougars.... It used to be the state of Easy Living, especially on the Gulf Coast (where I live). Now it's becoming unpleasantly urbanized. Too bad. I'm out.

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      Ted Gale

      I share that . . . my wife and I just aren't clear where we would go.

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        Amanda

        We're not, either. We love England but want land and the housing market there is off-the-charts expensive. Right now, BC in Canada looks most attractive (I have three citizenships: it helps!).

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          Ted Gale

          LOL . . . three citizenships does expand one's options . . . so, far, we are limiting ourselves to the lower 48, and since my wife hates cold winters, a return to New England (which is where our roots are) is off the table. I would opt for the Rocky Mountain West, but, even aside from the issue of winter, my wife says she would miss having access to the ocean. And, yes, the price of real estate is going to be an issue . . .

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            Amanda

            Interesting -- what about something in or near the Shenandoah Valley? (OK: no ocean, but the weather's not bad). Charleston or environs? The Outer Banks of NC? Rhode Island? In any case, you'll get something more like seasons again. (I understand about the cold winters: I'm not too fond of them, either. Frost is great, snow is not really my thing.) Another benefit of leaving Florida is departing the hurricane belt. We've suffered them here and in Texas. A pain in the buttocks I can do without : )

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    The Stray Goose

    "the most famous Florida Man of them all" - Comedy gold! (literally!)

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    Denise Cote

    Oh to once again have a party of "leave us alone"! One can dream.

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    Tele

    I read somewhere that all politics is a battle between people who want to be left the bleep alone versus people who can't leave anyone the bleep alone. I miss when the GOP could leave people the bleep alone. I suppose there really isn't power in leaving people alone, except of course for the power of the individual being left alone.

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  8. JohnO

    "The new divide in the GOP seems much less ideological and far more about the permissible means of obtaining and keeping power."

    This kind of line is why I loved Chris Stirewalt on Fox and believe I will love him even more, 'unchained', on TD. Often it's argued that anything less than extremely anti-Trump people on the right have abandoned conservative ideas. Some have. And some parts of the GOP coalition (even with a nostalgic view of the Reagan landslides) never embraced these ideas, or not all of them (the famed 'three legged stool' of economic and social conservatism and muscular foreign policy, some social conservatives have always been open to populist anti-market ideas, some economic conservatives never GAS about social issues). But many people on the right actually are contesting one another based on supporting 'total war' v the left or some other approach. At the (small) very anti-Trump end of the spectrum on the right it's sometimes claimed that countenancing Trump in any way is inherently a betrayal of conservative ideas. And this idea appeals to people further to the left, since they naturally have a higher opinion of the left, Democrats and media allies than conservatives do ('wokeness and cancel culture? those are things mainly made up by Fox News' etc.). But it's not an accurate, or complete at least, way to look at the actual divide on the right IMO, as this piece explains well.

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      Grandma B

      Everyone at The Dispatch has a name for their columns or pods. I like the idea of “Stirewalt Unchained” for Chris’s.

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  9. Scott N.

    That idol is one of the most blasphemous things I've seen in a long time. I mean it's a blast out of Turkmenbashi's style: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/dec/21/1.

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  10. Davechauncey

    Chris,

    You are right about demographic trends favoring Republicans. I have said for awhile that there is a self selection that occurs when people move these days. Most conservative Western New Yorkers or Eastern Ohioans looking for a warm place with lots of middle class type jobs are not choosing more liberal metros to live in. Southwest Florida, Northeast Florida, Tampa Bay, and the Panhandle are booming and all maintaining conservative edges throughout their metros. Broward County and much of Miami are still the place those Yankees with a liberal lean head, but in Florida, even the liberals traditionally have been very pro-business and low taxes. There has not been a Democratic gubernatorial candidate to run on raising an income tax ever. Even the liberal Andrew Gillum stayed away from that.

    A lot of it also has to do with the types of businesses moving to states. While Texas has taken a lot of tech jobs, Florida's bread and butter has been finance/banking and insurance. Tech is just naturally more liberal. South Florida has seen a huge rise in job creation in the sector, and Jax currently has the HQs for Fidelity Investment Services and the American HQ for Deutche Bank. Of course, tourism makes it all run as well as it does. Orlando is the one metro that has swung very far left in the last decade. The Bernie Sanders effect on South American immigrants and second generation types also was probably the most significant movement of all this past cycle. GWB won Florida by 5% because he dominated the Latin vote. Trump didn't quite get back to those numbers but did get back to GWB 2000 numbers and reversed most of Obama's gains. The predominantly white suburbs still moved away from Trump in FL and according to Exit Polls, Seniors only went 52% for Trump which was the lowest of any Republican since GWB in 2000.

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