Requiem for a vanished swing state, Florida | Editorial

Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Florida is no longer a purple state evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. In the 2020 presidential election, Florida crossed the battle line to firmly join other Southern states cloaked in Republican red.

We shouldn’t be surprised. It didn’t happen overnight. Republicans have controlled the Governor’s Mansion since 1998, the Florida Senate since 1994 and the Florida House since 1996. And since last year, when three liberal justices were forced to retire at age 70, Florida also has a Republican Supreme Court, where membership in the Federalist Society is the ticket for appointment.

But on the national stage, Florida cemented its turn of the color wheel on Tuesday. For while past presidential elections were squeakers, decided by 1 percentage point or so, Florida went solidly for President Trump by 3.4 percentage points this year. The results have rightly been called a blowout.

At the same time, Miami-Dade, once a dependable Democratic stronghold, gave the boot to two Democratic members of Congress: Donna Shalala and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. While Dade still leans light blue, it favored former Vice President Joe Biden by only 7.3 percentage points -- more than 20 points less than Hillary Clinton four years ago. Dade’s performance has rightly been called a bloodbath.

As for Tallahassee, Republicans flipped five Democratic seats in the House, including that of Rep. Cindy Polo, a progressive Democrat from Miramar. They also won two open seats in the Senate. It’s rightly been called a rout.

Given this editorial board’s focus on the need to address climate change, it hurts to see Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez 21 votes under water in Miami-Dade, which is the tip of the spear for sea level rise. Rodriguez wears rain boots during the annual legislative session to raise awareness about the need to do something, anything, such as requiring higher elevations for new buildings on the beach. For addressing this existential threat, JJR heads to a recount as the underdog.

Sure, Broward and southern Palm Beach counties remain solidly blue, as do the college towns of Gainesville and Tallahassee, plus the Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville metro areas.

But Florida’s sea-of-red political map, pockmarked with pockets of blue, says that more of us are comfortable with Republican ideology, no matter the imperfect messenger of President Trump.

If you’re not content with it, you’ve got to let the results of this election shake out, then shake up the Democratic party and focus on 2022. “We’re not the other guy” is hardly a compelling message. And Democrats have failed to get solidly behind winning messages they should have supported -- like the minimum wage amendment and the medical marijuana amendment of 2018.

In Miami-Dade what we saw is that a great many Hispanics who have immigrated here -- Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans -- joined conservative retirees who’ve escaped the north’s higher taxes, more concerned about the so-called threat of socialism than about immigration reform, universal health care and America’s standing on the world stage.

Trump and his surrogates, led by Gov. Ron DeSantis, drove home the message that Biden and Kamala Harris would govern as socialists. At a midnight Trump rally in Opa-locka earlier this week, DeSantis used one word to describe the Democratic ticket: “Marxism.”

Biden and Harris failed to adequately counter the narrative. During the second debate, Biden asked: “Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?” He made clear that he, not Bernie Sanders, was the face of the Democratic Party. But among Miami-Dade Hispanics who have fled socialist regimes, the socialist label stuck.

Calls to “defund the police” didn’t help. Neither did protests that turned violent. Still, Democrats who stand for health care, child care and a living wage just can’t seem to crack the code of a winning statewide message, despite more than half of Florida’s children living near the edge of poverty.

Some of Florida’s poorest counties gave Trump some of his biggest victory margins. In Union County, which has the lowest per capita income of all 67 counties, 82% voted for the president. In second-lowest Hardee, 72% voted for Trump. In third-lowest Hendry, 61% voted for the president.

Tuesday’s other hard lesson for Democrats is one they keep learning the hard way: Elections are all about turnout.

In Democrat-leaning Broward, turnout was a robust 76%. In Miami-Dade, it was 74.5%. And in Palm Beach, it was 75.7%.

But these numbers don’t match the turnout in the smaller, heavily Republican counties of Collier (Naples), 90%; Sumter (The Villages), 88%; and St. Johns, south of Jacksonville, 85%; and Lee (Fort Myers) 81%.

If Collier can get a 90% turnout, why can’t Broward?

Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Terrie Rizzo was right to predict a “turnout election,” except the Republicans won.

Republicans flatly out-worked Democrats at the unglamorous but important work of registering new voters. And say what you will, they didn’t let the pandemic stop them from knocking on doors with voter registration forms in hand.

It’s been two years since the 2018 mid-term election, when Florida Democrats suffered two excruciatingly close losses in races for governor and U.S. Senate. After those crushing defeats, Democrats promised to do better. But Tuesday showed Florida Democrats appear in more disarray than ever. They need a refined message, a new strategy for registering voters and a better way to ensure their voters vote.

Until then, to call Florida a “swing state” or a “battleground” state is a work of fiction that gives Democrats credit they don’t deserve.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Dan Sweeney, Steve Bousquet and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.

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