None of that, however, precludes the Democrats from regaining lost ground in the Legislature, or in local offices. That's the hard work that Florida's Democrats seem to have slacked at. The number of close LEGISLATIVE races they've lost, even with decent candidates, is the most baffling aspect of Florida's politics.
I suppose - you exclude Panhandle in your (slightly optimistic for Democrats) reasoning. Besides Leon (government + university) and Gadsden (Blacks) counties Democrats have nothing to brag about in this region of state, though some local offices in many counties are still held by Democrats (surely - mostly conservative, or, in some cases - Black). Even recently competitive (Jefferson a.o.) counties become more and more polarized (as whites began to vote overwhelmingly for Republicans on state and even local levels), while other, where Democrats were competitive on local level quite recently, became "Republicans only" (Holmes, Suwannee, Washington, a.o.). I don't even mention "the Redneck Riviera" area (Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Gulf), which is rather quickly growing, and where Democrats seem to be nonexistent. There will be an election in the "most Dixie state legislative district in Florida"(and one of the few in the nation) - HD7, soon, and Democratic candidate from this predominantely rural and conservative district is a young liberal-leaning person from Tallahassee. What are his chances? Zero. I frequently mention the Liberty county in Panhandle as "most Dixie county in the nation" with all-D local officials, but even there Democratic registration majority fell from 75-19 to about 69-24 in few years (it was over 80% Democratic about 10 years ago), and, what's most important, even in non-presidential races, Democratic percentage fell precipitously: Bill Nelson (supposedly - "moderate" and a sort of icon in Florida politics for many years) got only 23.34% there in 2018 (he narrowly
won Liberty, getting 49.03%, in 2012, and Alex Sink won it too in 2010). In 10 years it will be Republican as well...
Of course, Democrats may compensate that losses in some suburbs and on Gold coast, but that strategy has it's own obvious limits too.. Many retires are conservative-leaning, many Cubans are still Republican (and may stay that way because of Catholic and "macho" traditions, which are not very compatible with main principles of modern Democratic party), and so on... Right now Republican Panhandle advantage is almost equal to Miami-Dade Democratic one, and who knows - is it a limit or no... The only positive (for Democrats) thing i observe there - besides "Redneck Riviera" counties of the Panhandle grow slowly, if at all....
P.S. Of course - we speak about 7-8% (not counting Duval, 11-13 - with it) of Florida population, but - without Panhandle Florida would vote for Gore in 2000, Nelson/Gillum in 2018, and so on...
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