Why was FL so Republican from 1952 to 2008?

[Skill and Chance]

It followed more or less the same trajectory as VA from 1948-96: Ironclad Dixiecrat machine rule  with an economic conservative streak through the end of the New Deal, then suburban Republicans start having the numbers to outvote the Dixiecrat machines, then civil rights laws get passed and the Dem base becomes mostly non-white.  The residual Dixiecrat influence fades, first at the federal level, then at the statewide level, then at the local level, and there simply isn't enough economic populism to create a winning Dem coalition, like there was in the Appalachian/Ozark states and Lousiana.  Republicans get a couple decades of 60/40 blowouts, but then the Democrats slowly make a comeback as the states get more diverse and it turns into 55/45 R by the 1990's.  The states diverged after that, and for whatever reason, the North Florida Dems came home for Southern presidential nominees more than the rural VA Dems did, but the basic pattern was very similar.