Which Florida counties flip?

[kwabbit]

Hillsborough will be really interesting to watch imo. The County has been remarkably stagnant Presidentially since 2008 (D+7), but recent regristration and 2022 makes it seem like the County could lurch right and even flip in 2024. Miami-Dade and Hillsborough have the chance to be the 2 largest Republican voting counties nationally.

Despite it's consistency Presidentially the County has always seemed to be a bit more favorable to Republicans downballot - Rubio carried it in 2016 and Scott in 2014 for instance, so 2022 results may be a bit misleading - especially since Dems didn't do uniquely bad there in the context of the state in 2022.

Crist carried Hillsborough in 2014, although just barely.

Pinellas and Pasco are more similar than Pinellas and Hillsborough. In Hillsborough, I'd estimate the 55% of Whites have a college degree. That might be 40% in Pinellas and 30% in Pasco.

Hillsborough definitely is more typically Southern. More class and racial polarization. South Tampa is very similar to Buckhead in Atlanta. Pinellas and Pasco have demographics more like someplace like Saginaw County, MI than Tampa, Atlanta, Charlotte, etc. Interior Pinellas and the Pasco Coast are filled with heavily White trailer parks that loved Clinton, Gore, and even Obama through 2012. These communities have unsurprisingly swung massively to Trump, but they remained Dem for a long time, and backed Crist to a hilt in 2014.

Holiday, FL (Southern Coastal Pasco, pop 25k):
75% White, 15% Hispanic, 7% Black, 11% Bachelor's attainment

2000: D+14
2012: D+10
2014: D+13
2016: R+15
2020: R+19

[kwabbit]

I can see Miami Dade flipping but who are the voters that would even make that happen? Aren't Republicans maxed out with Cubans there or do they still have room to go with them and Puerto Ricans etc??

I think it's more likely Biden narrowly wins Miami-Dade than Trump does. There would probably need to be some sort of huge turnout differential between post-pandemic transplants and "locals", as well as post-2010 non-Cuban Latin American immigrants being anomalously R like post-2010 Cuban immigrants are.

So far the GOP has been making as much progress with non-Cubans as Cubans. Despite recent South American immigrants being relatively richer and educated, Doral (South American) and Hialeah (less affluent Cuban) have been moving about the same. The more affluent Cuban areas have had more muted swings. I think it's fairly safe to assume that both Doral and Hialeah swing right again.

The issue for Dems in Miami-Dade is that the Jewish and Black populations have been shrinking and swinging right. As a percentage of the population, their decline is being replaced by new Latin American immigrants that seem to be keyed into low-fidelity media that often push right wing ideas.

Miami-Dade will probably continue swinging right as a result of this. Post-Covid immigration has been massive and not many are eligible to vote. Once they are, early signs suggest that they will vote strongly GOP.