Why is Florida no longer a battleground state in the US election?

(Dan Tri Newspaper) - Both objective factors and tactical errors are believed to have caused the Democratic Party to lose Florida to the Republican Party in recent years.

Former US President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in 2018 (Photo: Getty Images/Bloomberg).

In 2000, U.S. President George W. Bush won the election only after securing a victory in Florida by a margin of 537 votes, the smallest margin ever recorded in American history. For many years, thanks to its large population, Florida was considered a crucial battleground state. From 1996 to 2016, the candidate who won Florida went on to occupy the White House. However, this is a thing of the past. The Democratic Party has not won any state-level elections since 2018. Candidates no longer campaign in Florida regularly. Voters are no longer bombarded with political advertisements leading up to the election. The Democratic Party may blame demographic factors or the Republican-favored electoral map. However, it cannot be denied that they also contributed significantly to this defeat. According to the New York Times , the Democrats' decline stems from flawed tactics, both in fundraising and in attracting voters, particularly misconceptions about the Latino electorate. "The Florida story isn't just Florida. It's the story of a struggling progressive movement in the South, struggling to win over young Black voters, struggling to attract young male voters," said Raymond Paultre, executive director of a Democratic donor group in Florida. The fragmentation of funding is a key factor.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a press conference in Palm Beach, Florida (Photo: Reuters).

In the eyes of the Democratic Party, the shift in Florida has been slow but has unexpectedly accelerated. 2012 was the last time a Democratic candidate – President Barack Obama – won in Florida. At that time, there were 1.5 million more Democratic voters than Republican voters. Since then, all 67 counties in Florida have leaned more toward the Republican side. By 2020, the number of Democratic voters was only 97,000 more than Republican voters. Now, the Republican Party has a million more registered "active" voters than the Democratic Party. In Florida, voters who do not vote (either in person or by mail) or update their registration status in two consecutive general elections are considered "inactive." The majority of these "inactive" voters in Florida are Democrats. Furthermore, similar to several other Southern states, the Republican Party has successfully attracted many voters who previously voted for their opponent. The party's ranks were also bolstered by migrant voters to the state, whose numbers increased after the Covid-19 pandemic. The Republican Party in Florida is one of the most well-funded state-level parties in the country and can independently implement its voter registration program. Part of this is due to the party's 25-year control of the state government, which allows them to design electoral districts to their advantage. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has very little influence at the state level. In both the Senate and the House of Representatives, they hold less than one-third of the seats. Therefore, they have to delegate voter registration to non-profit groups. However, despite millions of dollars raised, these groups have failed to achieve their goal of registering a large number of voters. This lack of organizational focus has also led to fragmented fundraising. Following Obama's success over a decade ago, the party's benefactors want greater control over their money. They established an organization to channel funds to smaller groups, rather than to the entire party. According to Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist, this move weakened the party because the Florida Democratic Party lacked a governor to coordinate fundraising and relied heavily on independent donors. "By doing that, we shot ourselves in the foot," Schale said. Misjudging voters .

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (Photo: TNS).

The Democratic Party's "neglect" of Florida became evident in 2020 when the federal party spent very little money on the state. Faced with the weakening Democratic Party, the Republican Party quickly seized the opportunity to redraw the electoral map in the state. A series of conservative policies were also enacted to turn Florida into a Republican stronghold. The "loss" of Florida forced the Democratic Party to find other ways to win at the federal level. In 2020, President Joe Biden won the presidency without the votes of Florida residents. This was also the first time Florida had not voted for a winning candidate since the 1996 election. Donald Trump won by more than 3 percentage points, the largest margin in the state since 2004. This margin is likely to be surpassed as Trump is leading Vice President Kamala Harris by an average of about 7 percentage points, according to opinion polls. Beyond their fundraising methods, the Democratic Party also made other miscalculations. They previously believed that their coalition would be stronger as the percentage of Latino voters increased. They also assumed that younger Cuban Americans would lean toward the Democrats, unlike older generations who preferred Republicans. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won 62% of the Latino vote but still lost the election because she failed to attract white voters. In particular, older white voters, those who were retired, or those without college degrees relatively supported Trump. Even Latinos themselves didn't support the Democrats as expected due to Republican policies and the difficult economic situation many Latinos faced during the pandemic. Statistically, young Cuban American voters didn't vote significantly differently from their grandparents. The 2022 midterm elections were considered a disaster for the Democratic Party; their gubernatorial candidate lost by nearly 20 percentage points. They also allowed the Republicans to gain an absolute majority—over two-thirds of the seats—in both the state Senate and the House of Representatives. Now, the Democrats have shown signs of recovery. They defended the Miami-Dade County mayoral seat, won the Jacksonville governorship, and gained a House seat in Orlando. However, the chances of Harris defeating Trump in Florida are almost zero. "We're not going to be able to move from a 20-point deficit in 2022 to 'everything's fine'," commented Beth Matuga, a Democratic political consultant.

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