How did Trump flip Florida?

[EJ24]

I remember hearing on election night that he ran up huge margins in a lot of the rural panhandle counties that offset Clinton's advantage in Miami-Dade and Dem-leaning areas.

Is that the whole story? Did Trump also overperform with hispanics/Cubans?

And is there something in 2020 that looks more favorable to Dems winning Florida?

[Mr. Smith]

He overran Romney in the middle part of the state.

[Bootes Void]

The fastest growing parts of Florida are very heavily republican, that helped him out as well

[TML]

The decisive region in FL was the suburban/exurban counties in and around Orlando & Tampa. He outperformed Romney in these counties by 232K votes, which was more than double his statewide margin of victory (113K votes).

And no, the panhandle wasn't anywhere near decisive - he only outperformed Romney by 37K votes in this region.

[Pericles]

Trump lost Miami-Dade by 29% and 290k votes, compared to Romney's 24% and just under 210k vote loss. He just more than made up for it in the rest of the state. I remember hearing that the specific trends that got Trump over the line in Florida were quite similar to those in the Midwest, and that the Midwestern transplants there were indicative of the Upper Midwest wins he pulled off later in the night.

[Bootes Void]

Steve Kornacki basically said Trump performed very well in Central Florida(Pasco,Sumter,Lake,Volusia) along with strong turnout from traditionally republican areas like the Panhandle and the southwest

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

The New-Deal Counties in the Northern half like Pasco and Brevard and Volusia, which are anchored by Small/Mid-Size arguably WWC areas swung hard to Trump.