Florida and the Democrats!

[TommyC1776]

It seems to me that Florida has always gone Democratic for most of it's being a state, so far, with a few exceptions.  Someone told me that since there's a lot of senior citizens living there and they usually vote Democratic and that's why it's different than the other Southern states.  Some exceptions (where it went Republican) are Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, G. H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.  But some of these Republican wins were not by a big margin.

[Alcon]

There are quite a few reasons why Florida does not vote so strongly Republican.

1. Senior citizens, many of them Jewish.
2. The Miami area, although not as strongly Democratic as one might assume (due to Republican-leaning Cubans), still strongly helps the Democrats.
3. Southern Florida is not really all that "southern" to begin with.

[nclib]

Actually, it's only the last three elections that Florida has been considerably less Republican than the rest of the South. In 1992, Fla. went Republican when four Southern states (La., Ark., Tenn., and Ga.) went Democratic.

[jimrtex]

There are quite a few reasons why Florida does not vote so strongly Republican.

1. Senior citizens, many of them Jewish.
2. The Miami area, although not as strongly Democratic as one might assume (due to Republican-leaning Cubans), still strongly helps the Democrats.
3. Southern Florida is not really all that "southern" to begin with.

Dade County had 861 people in 1890 (and this was before the areas that became Martin, Palm Beach and Broward counties) were split off.

By 1900, this increased to 4,955.

By 1910, Palm Beach had split off and the combined population was 17,510.

By 1920, Broward had split off and the combined population was 66,542.

By 1930, Martin had split off and the combined population was 219,941.

1940:    393,817
1950:    701,512
1960: 1,514,031
1970: 2,264,680
1980: 3,284,858
1990: 4,157,000
2000: 5,139,295
2005: 5,561,928 (estimate)