The Florida results...anomoly or cause for serious GOP concern?

[sg0508]

Of all the toss-up states, it was probably the one most likely to go to the GOP next to NC and the democrats won the state.  Chuck Todd's analysis showed five things:

1) I-4 Corridor- Obama swamped Romney, especially with the Puerto Rican vote
2) Hispanics- Obama swamped Romney (the story in CO and across the country)
3) Cubans- Obama performed the best of any democrat with that demographic
4) Young Voters- Like in 2000, 2004 and 2008, the democrats crushed the Republicans
5) GOP turnout didn't appear to be depressed

Some Republicans seem to be writing the FL loss off as turnout (i.e. the GOP voters thought the race was over and didn't bother to show), but for 29 EVs in my opinion, this was a significant win for the Democrats.  Similar to OH, there is almost no path to 270 going forward for the Republicans without FL and while locally the state is dominated by Republicans, the democrats are going to slowly take this gold mine of EVs and political power away from the GOP too.

Opinions?

[sg0508]

Keep in mind also that displaced voters from NY, NJ, PA and IL continuously move to South and Central Florida and most of these voters are democrats or vote for democrats.

Similar to VA and CO, the democratic populations of FL seem to be growing at a faster rate than their rivals.