WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Florida has 1 million more Republican registered voters than Democrats, elections 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, according to figures released by county elections supervisors this weekend. About 3.9 million voters don't affiliate with any political party or affiliate with minor parties.
The state’s changing political landscape is unusual because of how quickly it became so conservative. In 2020, Democrats held about a 97,000 vote registration edge over Republicans. Since then, there has been a rapid increase in registered Republican voters.
Having this large of a voter registration edge is a win for the Florida Republican Party, who touted the party as “the most successful party in the nation,” according to a statement from Evan Power, the Florida Republican Party chair.
But it's bad news for the state's Democratic Party, which already suffered massive losses in 2022 with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis's 19-point win for his reelection that helped a statewide reddening in traditionally blue counties and local elections. In the lead-up to the November general election, Democrats have clung onto hopes of Florida returning to its swing state reputation.
Democrats often point to demographic shifts in Florida being one reason for the voter registration edge, since a major influx of voters came into the state when DeSantis emerged as a leader of the GOP resistance to pandemic public health policies. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated an average of about 667 more people moved into the state than moved away every day between 2020 and 2021, but it did not specify their political party.
A Republican-backed law also took effect last year, which cracked down on third-party voter registration organizations that mobilized minority and college-age voters, which tend to vote Democrat. The law in part raised the fines for violations like turning in paperwork to the wrong county or hiring a noncitizen volunteer, from $1,000 to $250,000, and reduced the amount of time the groups can return registration applications from 14 days to 10 days.
Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, called the voter registration edge “empty rhetoric.”
“While Florida Republicans have spent years dismantling voting rights to inflate their numbers and take victory laps on the voter registration gap, it hasn’t stopped Florida Democrats from winning elections like the Jacksonville Mayor’s race or flipping State House District 35, both wins that demonstrated a growing lack of enthusiasm for the Republican Party and an increasing number of Independent voters rejecting extremism in Florida," she said in a statement.
Fried noted that since Vice President Kamala Harris entered the presidential race, the state experienced an influx of 18,000 volunteers signing up with the Florida Democratic Party, which she called a “massive 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 signaled high hopes for victory on these causes, which are largely supported by their party. Pollsters and political strategists — even across party lines — signaled that these amendments put the state back in play, since abortion referendums have benefitted Democrats in other states.
FILE - People wait in line to vote outside of an early voting site in Miami Beach, Fla., Oct. 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)
