South Florida was once home to enough Democrats to hold statewide elections and score multiple victories in Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Not anymore.
Democrats still outnumber Republicans in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, but their lead is shrinking.
The region is generally not Republican red. But it’s no longer bright Democratic blue. “The purple of South Florida,” said Steve Geller, Broward County commissioner and former Democratic leader of the Florida Senate.
“I think Democrats in South Florida are really in trouble,” said Kathryn DePalo-Gould, a political scientist at Florida International University. “It seems like South Florida is changing too.
One of the most ominous developments for Democrats is Republican Donald Trump’s victory in Miami-Dade, the first time since the 1980s that a Republican presidential candidate has won the state’s largest county.
Trump won 55% of the vote in Miami-Dade County, 11 percentage points more than Democrat Kamala Harris.
In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton received 63% of the vote in Miami-Dade County, 29 points ahead of Trump.
Two years ago, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis also won the county, where Democrats still outnumber registered Republicans — slightly.
Also in 2022, DeSantis won Palm Beach County, where Democrats significantly outnumber Republicans. This year, Trump finished less than three-quarters of a percentage point behind Harris.
Only Broward is still reliably Democratic — but not nearly as strong as it once was.
Trump received 40.9% of the vote in Broward, a county where a statewide Republican once winning more than 30% of the vote was considered an achievement. Trump received 31.2% in 2016 and 34.7% in 2020.
South Florida has always been home to a large number of Republican voters, thanks to large populations in all three counties, said Kevin Wagner, a political scientist at Florida Atlantic University. What’s changing, he said, is that their numbers are increasing and their candidates are running and sometimes winning races they historically haven’t won.
“That’s a sign of growing Republican strength,” Wagner said.
Related articles
Broward
Harris received 507,057 votes in Broward, unofficial totals showed Friday, good for 57.8% of the vote.
Trump received 358,842 votes, or 40.9%, in his third presidential election.
The trajectory is striking. Trump has risen sharply from the 260,951 votes he received in 2016 to 333,409 in 2020.
Harris had a huge drop from the 618,752 votes Biden received in 2020. In 2016, Clinton received 553,320 votes in Broward.
Broward is still a predominantly Democratic county. There is only one Republican in the county, state Rep. Chip LaMarca of Lighthouse Point, who holds a partisan position in which candidates run with Democratic or Republican party labels.
But in many cases the results are becoming increasingly narrow.
Moscowwitz district
U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Parkland, won a second term in Broward-Palm Beach County’s 23rd District on Tuesday.
According to Friday’s unofficial results, Moskowitz received 52.42% of the vote, compared to 47.58% for Republican Joe Kaufman, who had run for Congress many times before in a different district.
Moskowitz’s margin of victory was the closest of any of the state’s 27 congressional races. (One district did not hold an election because no one filed to challenge U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who represents another Broward-Palm Beach district.)
Moskowitz is much better known in Broward, where he served in elected and appointed offices, and it was the Broward part of the district that carried him.
Moskowitz received 24,167 more votes than Kaufman in Broward. In Palm Beach County, Kaufman had a 6,092-vote advantage.
Southwest Browward
Voters in south and west Broward sent well-known, seasoned elected officials back to Congress, to the state Legislature and to the County Commission.
But their Republican opponents performed well, signaling a discoloration of that part of the county and, in the longer term, the potential for Republican victories in a region long dominated by Democrats.
County Commissioner Nan Rich, who is currently serving a term as county mayor and former Democratic leader in the Florida Senate, was re-elected with 53% of the vote.
Her little-known Republican challenger Herbert E. “Herb” Vargas received 47%.
“That speaks to me about having a Hispanic Republican running in a district with a lot of Hispanic voters,” said Richard DeNapoli, the Republican state committeeman-elect for Broward and the county’s former Republican chairman.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, the longest-serving Democratic congresswoman in the state, won her 11th term with 54% of the vote against Chris Eddy, a Weston city commissioner.
In the lower-turnout 2022 midterm elections, Wasserman Schultz received 55% of the vote against a perennial candidate who had never held elected office. Before the district became all-Broward two years ago and changed the area she represented, Wasserman Schultz had averaged 63% in her previous elections in Broward.
State Rep. Robin Bartleman, D-Weston, won with 54.16%. Barbara Sharief, a former county commissioner and Miramar commissioner, received 56% of the vote to win an open Senate seat in Florida.
One factor in south and west Broward is almost certainly the increasing number of Spanish-speaking residents — and the political leanings of many.
“I think it’s a function of Hispanic voters, especially in west Broward, voting straight Republican,” DePalo-Gould said, which has “made a lot of these districts a lot closer than we’ve ever actually seen.
The Democrats are still winning. But, she said, “in the future, it may be something that Republicans will look to eat into the Democratic base in Broward County, as they have always tried to do for the last 20 years.”
If the trend continues, she said the next time the Florida Legislature reapportions congressional and legislative seats to reflect population changes revealed in the 2030 census, Republicans will likely look to create of districts that are more favorable to their candidates.
“The Democratic margins, especially in South Broward, are not what they once were. And a lot of it is due to a loss of Hispanic votes, which I think we (the Democrats) can get back,” Geller said.
He said Democrats have not done a good job of countering the Republican message — which he says is a lie — to Hispanics that Democrats are socialists. In South Florida, where many Spanish-speaking residents fled socialist regimes, that message may resonate.
“We are not socialists. But they have managed to convert too many Hispanic voters in Florida,” Geller said. “That will have an impact, especially in South Broward.”
Cuban Americans have been more Republican for years. But other Hispanics voting for Republicans, especially Trump, will have long-term consequences in Florida, said Roger Stone, a decades-long Trump ally and informal adviser who lives in Fort Lauderdale.
“Traditionally, for example, Hispanic voters outside of Cubans in this state have been Democrats. Trump won among Puerto Ricans (Tuesday). He won among all ethnic Hispanic voters. That is a realignment,” he told reporters at Trump’s victory party on election night.
Palm Beach County
Harris received 372,230 votes in Palm Beach County, the unofficial count showed Friday, accounting for 49.76% of the vote. Harris was lower than the 433,572 votes Biden received in 2020 and slightly lower than the 374,673 votes that went to Clinton in 2016.
Trump had 366,686 votes, or 49.02%
Trump is up, from 334,711 votes in 2020 and 272,402 in 2016.
“With Trump so close, Palm Beach is now more of a competitive county. In many ways, it is more like Tampa than the true blue county that Palm Beach was,” DePalo-Gould said.
Two years ago, DeSantis won the county en route to his landslide re-election, setting off strong performances from the other candidates statewide.
Palm Beach County is still heavily Democratic, but Republicans have had some victories and strong results.
This year, Republicans came close to capturing a key office, state attorney general, that has been held by Democrats for decades.
Democrat Alexcia Cox received 49.19% of the vote, compared to 48.39% for Republican Sam Stern. Adam Farkas, who was not a party member, received 2.42%. “We would have won that race” if Farkas had not run, said Joe Budd, the Republican state commissioner-elect for Palm Beach County.
The Republicans desperately wanted the prosecutor’s office. Three Trump-supporting billionaires donated $500,000 to Stern’s political committee, reported the investigative newsletter Seeking Rents, which focuses on how the business community influences public policy in Florida.
Republicans in Palm Beach County scored big victories.
State Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman, R-Highland Beach, won a second term against a well-funded Democratic challenger, Jay Sooster in southeastern Palm Beach County.
In western Palm Beach County, Republican Meg Weinberger, backed by Trump and nicknamed “MAGA Meg,” easily defeated Democrat Rachelle Litt to fill the seat vacated by Republican state Rep. Rick Roth, who was prevented from running due to term limits to nominate again. .
And most importantly, Republican Anne Gerwig defeated Democratic state Rep. Katherine Waldron. A recount completed early Saturday confirmed the result.
Terrie Rizzo, former chair of the Democratic Party of Florida and the Democratic Party of Palm Beach County, touted her many credits, including holding elected offices across the country.
Most significant was Democrat Joel Flores’ victory on the County Commission. The former mayor of Greenacres will become the first-ever Hispanic Palm Beach County commissioner. He defeated Michael Barnett, a former chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party who was appointed to the committee by DeSantis and was running for a full term.
DeSantis’ appointment of Barnett gave the Palm Beach County Commission a Republican majority. It will now return to a Democratic majority.
Budd praised and Rizzo lamented the results in School Board District 5, where Gloria Branch defeated Mindy Koch in the officially independent race. Koch is also a former chairman of the Democratic Party of Palm Beach County.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found at @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.
