WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Florida has a million more Republican registered voters than Democrats, election officials revealed, further cementing its status as a conservative hotbed.
There are 5.3 million active Republican voters compared to 4.3 million active Democratic voters, county election supervisors said this weekend. About 3.9 million voters are not affiliated with any political party or are affiliated with minor parties.
The state’s changing political landscape is unusual because it became so conservative so quickly. In 2020, Democrats had a roughly 97,000 vote registration advantage over Republicans. Since then, the number of registered Republican voters has grown rapidly.
Getting that big voter registration advantage is a win for the Republican Party of Florida, which touted the party as “the most successful party in the nation,” according to a statement from Florida Republican Party Chairman Evan Power.
But that’s bad news for the state’s Democratic Party, which already suffered huge losses in 2022 with a Republican governor. Ron DeSantis‘s 19-point victory for his re-election, which helped turn the state red in traditionally blue counties and local elections. Ahead of November’s general election, Democrats have been clinging to hopes that Florida will return to statehood.
Democrats often point to Florida’s demographic changes as one reason for the voter registration advantage, which saw a large influx of voters to the state after DeSantis emerged as the leader of the GOP’s resistance to pandemic public health policies. The US Census Bureau estimated that, on average, about 667 more people moved into the state than moved out each day in 2020-2021, but did not specify their political party.
A Republican-backed law also went into effect last year cracking down on third-party voter registration organizations that mobilize minority and college-age voters who tend to vote Democratic. The law, in part, raised fines for violations, such as sending paperwork to the wrong county or hiring a non-citizen volunteer, from $1,000 to $250,000, and shortened the turnaround time for group registration applications from 14 days to 10 days.
Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried called voter registration “empty rhetoric.”
“While Florida Republicans have spent years destroying voting rights to increase their numbers and take victory laps over the voter registration gap, that hasn’t stopped Florida Democrats from winning elections like the Jacksonville mayoral race or flipping state House District 35, both victories showing a growing lack of enthusiasm for the Republican Party and a growing number of independent voters rejecting extremism in Florida,” he said in a statement.
Fried noted that after Vice President Kamala Harris entered the presidential race, the state saw an influx of 18,000 volunteers joining the Florida Democratic Party, which she called “a huge momentum shift.”
Florida voters will also vote on constitutional amendments, including one to protect abortion rights and another to legalize marijuana, in November. Democrats have shown high hopes of winning on these issues, which are largely supported by their party. Polls and political strategists — even across party lines — showed that these changes put the state back in the game because abortion votes have benefited Democrats in other states.
