Florida has passed through a dramatic political transformation during the last decade from a swing state to Republican stronghold.
Florida’s contemporary congressional particular election on April 1, 2025, showcased the state’s increasingly more conservative identification, when Republicans received each congressional seats.
Nonetheless, Democrats felt hopeful about those effects, because the two Democratic contenders misplaced through slimmer margins within the 1st and sixth districts than in different contemporary elections.
As a political anthropologist who has performed fieldwork in central Florida, I’ve spent over 5 years monitoring the expansion of conservative political teams just like the Proud Boys and Mothers for Liberty, whose leaderships are founded in Florida.
I’ve observed firsthand how conservative activist networks and the expansion of tradition struggle politics, amongst different elements, have reshaped Florida’s political identification.
Florida’s Republican state Sen. Randy Effective holds a victory birthday celebration on April 1, 2025, in Ormond Seaside, Fla.
Joe Raedle/Getty Pictures
The state that stopped swinging
Even though political strategists have traditionally regarded as Florida a swing state in presidential elections, it has constantly voted Republican since 1948.
It has best voted for Democratic presidential applicants 5 occasions since 1964, for Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Invoice Clinton and two times for Barack Obama. President Donald Trump has received Florida thrice in a row, maximum not too long ago profitable the 2024 election in all however six of Florida’s 67 counties.
The primary battleground since 2000 has been the I-4 Hall, which connects Tampa, Orlando and Daytona. In 2000, President George W. Bush received the hall through 4,400 votes. Since Bush best received Florida through 537 votes, and thus the presidency, the world turned into a best precedence for each political events.
Some Democrats have mentioned Florida’s political evolution took place progressively after which suddenly.
In 2012, there have been nearly 1.5 million extra registered Democratic citizens than Republicans in Florida. In 2020, Democrats’ benefit dropped to about 97,000. And through September 2024, there have been nearly 1 million extra registered Republicans than Democrats.
Steve Schale, the top of Obama’s 2008 marketing campaign in Florida, argues that this shift took place since the Democratic Celebration misplaced the give a boost to of a few white citizens.
Republicans have additionally actively courted Hispanic citizens, whilst Democrats falsely believed that younger Hispanics would inherently lean towards their birthday celebration.
This assumption has harm the Democratic motive as a result of, as an example, some Hispanic citizens in Florida, like many Cuban American citizens, have lengthy preferred Republican. In truth, Trump carried out so smartly with Hispanics in Florida in 2024 that it was once the one state during which he won extra of the Hispanic vote than Kamala Harris.
State-level conservative luck
Florida has additionally had a Republican governor since 1998, a state Senate Republican majority since 1995 and a state Space majority since 1997. This Republican dominance has best grown since Trump’s 2016 election.
In 2018, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis won Trump’s endorsement and went from being fairly unknown within the gubernatorial primaries to the Republican nominee. He in the long run assumed administrative center in 2019.
Since then, DeSantis has effectively handed a slew of rules and insurance policies reflecting the conservative values of what he noticed as the brand new Floridian voters.
As an example, DeSantis handed a six-week abortion ban measure into regulation in 2023.
With DeSantis’ approval, Florida’s state Legislature additionally blocked variety, fairness and inclusion methods in state schools in 2023 and banned classes on sexual orientation and gender identification for public grade faculty scholars that very same yr.
In 2023, the Florida governor additionally signed a regulation that allowed folks to hold hid guns with out a allow.
The pandemic issue
Some conservative political pundits and DeSantis supporters say that the governor’s COVID-19 insurance policies are a few of the elements that experience attracted newbies to the state.
Nearly 300,000 folks moved from out of state to Florida between April 2020 and April 2021, equivalent to more or less 903 folks relocating to the state every day.
The governor ordered Floridians to stick at house throughout April 2020, however lots of his restrictions have been lifted on the finish of the month.
DeSantis didn’t put in force masks mandates, vaccine necessities and different measures that have been not unusual in different states.
All through my fieldwork in Florida from 2022 via 2024, I met more than one individuals who moved to rural portions of the state as a result of they didn’t need their lives to be significantly limited throughout the pandemic.
One guy in his early 50s said, “During COVID my wife and I realized how screwed we were if things got really bad. We hated the lockdowns and got scared about not having enough food. If things got really bad, we didn’t want to trust other people, we wanted to be self-sufficient. So, we decided to get a place in the middle of the woods, on our own property, that we could go to if everything went to hell.”
This couple settled on transferring from out of state to a rural space of Florida, the place they concept that they had the most efficient likelihood of fending off long term lockdown restrictions.
DeSantis’ coverage successes and his “freedom first” reaction to the pandemic were celebrated through conservatives nationally.
Mothers for Liberty individuals in Viera, Fla., protest pupil face masks mandates in 2023.
Paul Hennessy/SOPA Pictures/LightRocket by the use of Gety Pictures
Florida’s house for the alt-right
As Florida lawmakers have persevered to push conservative insurance policies because the pandemic, Florida-based activist teams like Mothers for Liberty have mobilized to give a boost to and enlarge them.
Mothers for Liberty was once based in 2021 through 3 Florida former faculty board individuals who antagonistic COVID-19 laws throughout the pandemic.
Mothers for Liberty is headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, and is interested by reshaping public faculty curriculum to exclude what its individuals see as “woke” topics, like sexual orientation.
The gang lobbied for the 2022 Parental Rights in Training Act and the Prevent-Woke Act, referred to through critics because the “Don’t Say Gay” regulation. This regulation restricts Florida school rooms from instructing youngsters in kindergarten via 3rd grade about sexual orientation and gender identification, and likewise limits instruction on those topics in upper grades.
Florida has increasingly more grow to be a stronghold for different kinds of political activists, a few of whom have been instrumental within the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021. Florida was once house to 11.5% of the 716 individuals who have been to begin with charged with taking part within the Capitol riots.
Essentially the most notable of those Jan. 6 arrests is Enrique Tarrio, a Miami local who has served because the symbolic chief of the Proud Boys, an alt-right “Western chauvinist” staff.
Alt-right activists are a minority of Florida’s conservative inhabitants. In my fieldwork, I’ve spoken to many Florida conservatives who didn’t determine with the Proud Boys or different alt-right teams – however have been nonetheless sympathetic to many in their populist and conservative reasons.
Not in play?
Florida is now a big Republican stronghold with Floridians changing into increasingly more outstanding in nationwide politics. Trump’s Cupboard has 23 folks – 16 of them are hooked up to Florida.
Those come with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who served as a senator in Florida, and Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi, who served as Florida’s state legal professional basic.
Although some Democrats might really feel constructive concerning the particular election effects, they have got misplaced the Sunshine State, no less than for now.
