For the longest time, Democrats have held an enormous built-in advantage in presidential elections, due mostly to their control of concentrated population centers on the left and right coasts. Republicans have long written off California and New York, which together with Illinois account for more than 100 of the 270 electoral votes required for election. Add in more than 50 locked-in votes for the Dems from seven more states around the east and another 20 from a couple more states on the left coast, and the Democrats start any presidential race needing well under half of the electoral votes available in swing states to win the presidency.
Of course, the corollary is that the Republicans have long had far less room for error. With Texas the only state locked in for the GOP holding more than 20 votes, they have consistently needed to land well over half of the votes available in battleground states just to eke out narrow victories in the three races they have won in the 21st century – George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, and Donald Trump in 2016.
Sunshine is the Best Disinfectant
That is why the latest news from Florida resounds with significance well beyond the boundaries of the Sunshine State. The Florida Board of Elections has revealed that, for the first time in at least the 30 years for which data is available – and likely ever – Republicans now outnumber Democrats by more than 100,000 in what has long been considered arguably the single most important swing state in the nation, now upgraded to 30 electoral votes after the latest census.
Florida has famously been attracting freedom-loving refugees from Blue America since the outbreak of the pandemic. This has raised fears in some circles that those escaping the endless spiral of tax-and-spend liberalism might nevertheless bring their politics with them – witness the tide of leftist people and companies abandoning California for trendy Austin, TX. But this revelation of Republicans overtaking Democrats in Florida all but puts that argument to rest, at least for the foreseeable future in this particular state which has come to be known, and proudly so by its brash, Trump-style Governor Ron DeSantis, as Free Florida.
If Florida can be turned into a reliably red state, it will alter the entire underlying calculus for presidential elections to which we’ve become accustomed for decades. And that is because not only Florida, but another state long considered a critical battleground has also, more quietly, turned from purple to red. While it has long leaned slightly Republican, Ohio became perhaps the biggest single success story for Trump – he won the state by identical eight-point margins in both 2016 and 2020, larger than his twin victories in Florida.
If both Florida and Ohio can now be counted on as reliable GOP bastions, together with Texas they would form a triumvirate totaling 87 electoral votes – competitive with the 101 votes Dems can count on from their trio of California, New York and Illinois. Add in another 125 votes from 20 thinly populated red states with between three and 11 electoral votes – and the Republicans would be able to depend on 212 electoral votes from the jump, just 58 short of the number needed for victory.
America, Colorized
Ah, you say, but what about Arizona and Georgia, both long controlled by the GOP but famously and controversially handed to Joe Biden in 2020? Shouldn’t those states now be painted at least a light shade of blue? Well, only if you also consider Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin a light shade of red because Trump won all three in 2016. It is legitimate to paint all those five states purple, along with Nevada, New Hampshire, and Maine. Then there is North Carolina, where Democrats have sometimes come close but never prevailed. If that is added to the reliable red column, it puts the GOP just over 40 votes away from the magic 270.
(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Without question, being able to paint Florida – and Ohio – red instead of purple will be of enormous consequence, and not just because of what it adds to the Republicans’ reliable baseline vote. Just as importantly, it will in the long run free up an enormous amount of resources – money, ads, candidate appearances, etc. – which in the past have been poured into the Sunshine State and Buckeye State, but can now at least theoretically allow them to concentrate more in other battlegrounds, and ultimately expand their horizons.
Changes in the electoral map have over the fullness of time occurred at what could accurately be termed a glacial pace. But they do always happen eventually. Consider that in 1936, one of only two states captured by Republican Alf Landon against President Franklin D. Roosevelt was – wait for it – Vermont, now a hip leftist refuge. In both 1980 and 1984, Ronald Reagan won California – and by more than 16 points each time – you can look it up. In 2008, almost nobody gave Barack Obama a chance to win solid red Iowa, but he did. Alterations in the electoral map are concurrent with underlying societal trends – mostly slow and steady. Might Florida be viewed by future historians as the fulcrum for fundamental alteration of the national political environment – and our long-held assumptions about presidential elections?
