Florida: What's the forecast?

[tarheel-leftist85]

I have do clue, only been there once.  Anybody familiar with it?  If so, please try to make distinctions in demographic and population trends within different parts of the state.

[Sam Spade]

Florida has actually remained fairly stagnant since the late 1980s-early1990s, when the Gold Coast finally made its move to voting like a NE suburb (excepting the Cubans in Dade County).

Fact is, Florida is still a lean Republican state nationally, which tends to be very Republican on the statewide level.  I really much changing in the near future, as the economy down there is extremely good and there appears to be no major impetus for change.

One thing will surely remain the same.  No one has ever figured out how to polls the state correctly, except M-D, and polls from there are simply not to be trusted.

[DanielX]

Last, probably. Florida is not a simple state.

It's actually one of the more conservative states nationwide; no state income tax, and it doesn't fund quite as much as, say, Maryland does.

Florida is also very ethnically and politically diverse. There are native whites who vote strongly Republican except for the old yellow-dog Democrats, recent immigrants (especially retirees) who vote depending on where they came from (generally the Northeastern Jews vote Democrat, the Midwestern whites vote Republican), Blacks who almost all vote Democrat, Cubans who mainly vote Republican, and other Hispanics who are mixed but vote Democrat. And this is 'in general', people will vote in different directions.

Actually, Florida is several states (sort of like most other big states, remember Florida's population is about the same as New York's, and Florida doesn't have a single NYC-like mass).

Pretty much the big regions:
1. The Panhandle and North-West: real Southern, very socially conservative, somewhat more rural. Big military base (Eglin AFB). Tallahassee, Pensacola, and Panama City are the three big cities. Lots of swamps and such. I haven't spent a huge amount of time there, but it's the less populated part of the state, with the main highway being I-10.
2. West Coast: stretches from just north of Tampa-St. Petersburg all the way down to Marco Island. I've been to Fort Myers a couple of times, also Sarasota once. Lots of retirees, especially around Sarasota. Populated. Tampa-St. Pete is the biggest metro area in Florida that I really never went to. Votes mainly Republican, is majority-white.
3. The I-4 Corridor, especially Orlando. Overlaps with West and East coasts, but what the hell. Biggest tourist area in state; second to Vegas in country. Very developed, all new development too (except for a few old houses in Orlando). My sister lives right near Eatonville, the former home of author Zora Neale Hurston - who described the agricultural community that existed there in 1900-1920 or therabouts. Now it's all a suburb of Orlando - and inner suburb, to boot; development extends for miles north. Swing district, very diverse population. The only big population center in-state.
4. Northeastern Florida: okay, a broad brush. Basically Jacksonville and its environs - biggest city but not biggest metro area in Florida. Oldest settled part of the US - St. Augustine, 1565. city leans Democrat (it's basically a big Southern city, like Atlanta or any other - largeish black population), outside Republican.
5. the central East Coast: Narrow strip of development along the coast running all the way between the Jacksonville and Miami/Ft.Lauderdale/Palm Beach zone. A bit of a bible-belt, but not too amazingly so. Lots of retirees here too. Go more than a miles inland, and it's all orange groves. Coast is also a tourist hit - Daytona Beach, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, anyone?
6. South Florida: Miami! I was born there. And Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Biggest metro area in Florida, lots of cities. Terrible traffic. Broward and Palm Beach counties are mainly white east-coast retiree democrats, Miami-Dade is 2/3 Hispanic (English is a second language there now). Leans Democrat, Miami-Dade least so because of Cuban Republican vote. Not sure how Monroe county votes, it's not hugely populated outside the Keys in any case. Go a few miles inland and everything's swamp. Most development was built in last few decades; pretty much development swung about 100 blocks west in the past 50 years in Miami-Dade, even more in Broward. Most development between the 1960s and 1990s.

Now, I'm done rambling...

[memphis]

Florida, like Arizona and Nevada, is growing so fast that anybody who claims to know the forecast is just making up a bunch of self-serving crap.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

I think it leans GOP and will stay that way for a long time.  With the amount of growth it's gone through, I think if a Democratic advantage was going to emerge it would have.  I simply don't believe every person moving there is a latte-liberal Northeasterner.  The massive migration to the state certainly helps the Dems, but I think as the Hispanics trand a little more to the GOP it will offset it. 

[Republican Michigander]

Florida's tough to predict. Gulf coast leans GOP. SE Florida is NYC South. Blacks go dem. North Florida is the South. Immigration and migration, as well as seniors, make things interesting.

I expect Florida to be competitive for years to come.

[Adlai Stevenson]

What was interesting in 2004 that young Floridian Cubans trended Democratic.  I remember seeing several pieces saying that they had fractured away from the GOP and were leaning towards Kerry.  I guess the 'Bay of Pigs generation' will always lean Republican but as 'Cubans' who were born in Florida twenty years later have no experience of it they will be more open to swings. 

[Buckwheat]

I think it will deifnately become more populist.  I lived there for a year, and it was not very clear if there was a clear, strong lean in any direction.  Miami cancels the panhandle and everywhere else is balanced among itself.  However, economically the population seems much more apathetic than they do about social issues.

[ottermax]

I'd have to agree that Florida is very confusing, but I think Florida's done with the spotlight and some other state will become the center of attention like Virginia.

[tarheel-leftist85]

I guess, a another question I would ask is how the i-4 (isn't that the one that goes from Daytona to Orlando to Tampa) corridor trending?  This is probably the fastest-growing, so it will become of more importance in statewide results (already did to some extent in 2004).  What types of people are moving there:  old people, young professionals, families, upper-middle class families, WASP southerners?  My guess would be middle-income families with a good proportion being black, hispanic, and asian.  Or is it more Joe Scarborough types?

[Democratic Hawk]

Since 1992, Florida seems to have swung from being a Democratic state at the state level to being a strongly Republican state at the congressional level (the Senate aside) to a lean Republican state at the presidential level (Clinton 1996, being the one exception)

In presidential elections, it was much more Republican in the 1980s. At a time I believe that state legislature was still Democrat

Can anyone tell me if the Democratic state senate and house seats are confined to those counties which have supported Democratic presidential candidates of late?

It's just that I've been wondering if the influx of retirees and others from the NE have contributed to the state becoming less Republican in presidential elections but more Republican at the state level

As far as future presidential elections go, it will be very much a competitive state with a moderate, particularly Southern, Democrat having a good shot at winning

Dave

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

A swing state with GOP leans

[??????????]

I think it will deifnately become more populist.  I lived there for a year, and it was not very clear if there was a clear, strong lean in any direction.  Miami cancels the panhandle and everywhere else is balanced among itself.  However, economically the population seems much more apathetic than they do about social issues.

Incorrect. The panhandle and central Florida can easily outvote South Florida and usually do. I believe Florida to be leaning in a conservative/republican direction. The main reason for this is conservative whites are being driven away from New England and the Upper Midwest as a result of liberal policies such as high taxation.

[??????????]

I guess, a another question I would ask is how the i-4 (isn't that the one that goes from Daytona to Orlando to Tampa) corridor trending?  This is probably the fastest-growing, so it will become of more importance in statewide results (already did to some extent in 2004).  What types of people are moving there:  old people, young professionals, families, upper-middle class families, WASP southerners?  My guess would be middle-income families with a good proportion being black, hispanic, and asian.  Or is it more Joe Scarborough types?

Most of the people I am running into who are moving down here to this neck of the woods are conservative middle class whites.

[Reignman]

In the last few years, it's gone conservative.  10 years from now, who knows.

[12th Doctor]

In the last few years, it's gone conservative.  10 years from now, who knows.

Florida hasn't "gone conservative" in the past few years.  It pretty much always was, with a brief Clinton interlude.  This isn't to mention the situations that uniquely effected the 2000 election probably hurt Bush the worst in Florida.  Calling the state before all the polls were closed in the most conservative part of the state and the fact that the Evangelical vote was already down for Bush due to the manufactured "scandal" involving his DUI.