Arguing that Florida is a competitive state with a straight face is hard to do in 2024. Arguing that Florida is a completely safe state with a straight face might be harder. The third-largest state in the nation contains so many factors, interests, demographics, potential novelties, and considerations all fighting against the pervasive shift of history which has clearly pushed the state to the right over the last decade. The Sunshine State generates a lot of noise, so we’re here to help distinguish between what matters and what doesn’t.

Let’s start with the obvious: Florida has swung hard towards Republicans over the last decade. Though the state has pretty consistently leaned Republican for many years (Obama won it by less than 3% in 2008, a significant underperformance compared to his national margin), there’s no ignoring that the last six years in particular have been particularly brutal for Sunshine State Democrats. Donald Trump overperformed by a little over three points in 2016, and by nearly eight points in 2020. In 2018, a Democratic-leaning midterm, Democrats narrowly lost the race for governor and lost an incumbent senator to boot. Then, in 2022, incumbent governor Ron DeSantis defeated his Democratic challenger by a nearly  20-point margin, notably picking up former Democratic stronghold Miami-Dade County. DeSantis’ domination was both the largest margin for a Republican in the history of the state and pushed Democrats down to their worst performance in a Florida gubernatorial election in over a century.

Several factors explain both this impressive feat and Florida’s shift towards Republicans at large. Start with the baseline and the trend: for the last 20 years, Florida has been to the right of the nation, and it’s relatively consistently become a point more Republican leaning every four years. This has been buoyed by the evident shift towards the GOP by Cuban Americans and the subtle shift towards the GOP by minority groups at large (though this has yet to clearly manifest electorally in a national sense, it visibly occurred in Florida. But I still suggest some caution: Republicans in Florida often do relatively well with Latino voters, like Jeb Bush back in 2002). Florida is a diverse state, on the verge of becoming a majority-minority state, so the more volatile crosscurrents affecting voting intention of these populations tends to have an overstated impact.

Another boon to Republicans that may have accounted for Trump and DeSantis’ overperformances there in 2020 and 2022, respectively, is the migration to the state over the last several years. Ranked first in the nation in terms of relocation, more than 400,000 people moved to the Sunshine State from 2021 to 2022, and this high rate of movement has continued apace – four out of five of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the last year were in Florida, and The Villages, home to a large retirement community, was the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country. All of this growth begs the question: are these new Republican voters, fleeing blue states in the hope of conservative salvation in Florida? There’s some evidence of this “Big Sort” movement of Republicans to Florida, even as some suggest that its effects are overstated given Florida’s consistently high growth rate. That said, we believe voter registration data supports this argument – of the roughly 650,000 voters who moved to Florida and registered to vote there between 2018-2023, Republicans had nearly a 2-to-1 advantage. 

Some back of the napkin math lends credence to this: in 2016, Trump won about 100,000 more votes than Clinton in Florida; then 650,000 voters – of whom about 390,000 of them were Republicans – moved to the state. At some point in the middle here, Trump bested Biden by about 370,000 votes. Given the remaining movement, that’s a lot of number padding by Republicans (reflected in the 2022 gubernatorial election to some degree). Given the different turnout rates between midterm and presidential elections (and whatever migration may yet occur), it’s hard to extrapolate how much further this Republican advantage may grow, and it’s also onerous to reverse the analysis to determine whether migration out of the state has been from disproportionately liberal voters. The conclusion, backed up by numbers, is that Florida has trended Republican for decades, but that this trend has selected into a more aggressive one as Republicans begin to move to Florida at a higher rate.

DeSantis may be the state’s most high-profile figure in state government, clearly positioning the state as a haven (and model) for Republicans nationwide, but – never to be outshined – we remind you it’s also the literal home of the Republican nominee, Donald Trump. Though we do not expect this to translate into a serious electoral gain for him, given the home state advantage is significantly smaller in larger states, Trump has also been characteristically effective in steering the Republican apparatus in the state towards his favor. As recent backlash to DeSantis showcases, it is more a matter of Trump’s dominance over the party and his thirst for retribution against his one-time primary foe, rather than general backlash against the GOP at large. The fact of the matter is that Florida has supplanted Texas to become something of a spiritual home for the modern Republican Party, and there’s very clear evidence of longstanding and recent trends to this effect.

So why is the Harris campaign (or Biden campaign before her) diverting resources and attention there? The cynical view is that this was and is not a serious play: they don’t expect to win the state but do want to draw upon the deep pockets of Floridian fundraisers and force the less-well-funded Trump campaign to devote resources in what should be home turf for them (it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where Trump can win the election without Florida).

The less cynical argument is that, if you squint, you can just make out the lane for Harris: Miami may have swung to the right, but Democrats have done better in counties like Jacksonville’s Duval County (Biden was the first Democratic nominee to win the county since 1976, and a Democrat won the mayoral race there in 2023) and Seminole County (part of the Orlando metropolitan area, Biden was the first Democrat to win there since 1948). Florida is an expensive state to run advertisements and campaign in, but the Harris campaign has had an impressive fundraising run it can use to pummel Trump in the state. Biden was also polling notably better with Americans over the age of 70, who make up about 13% of those in Florida, far more than any other state, and it appears as if Harris has inherited much of that advantage. Florida is particularly vulnerable to climate change, something the Harris campaign will also focus on. But above all, the Harris campaign will seize on abortion rights.

Abortion has become a nationwide issue in the wake of Dobbs, but DeSantis’ strict six-week abortion ban and the upcoming ballot measure that would protect abortion rights in Florida’s constitution will place reproductive rights squarely in the minds of Sunshine State voters. After Dobbs thrust the issue into the spotlight, abortion rights referenda have prevailed in every state (including red states like Ohio, Kentucky, Montana, and Kansas) where they’ve been put to the voters. As a result, activists (and Democrats) have moved to place similar initiatives on the ballot in 2024, with the aim of protecting the right to choose and, in the process, juicing turnout to boost Democratic candidates up and down the ballot. This makes sense conceptually, but has not necessarily panned out in practice: Democrats don’t seem to meaningfully overperform when they’re on the ballot alongside abortion referenda, in part because abortion rights are broadly more popular than Democrats in general. 

This doesn’t mean it won’t increase turnout from beleaguered Florida Democrats who have suffered a lot of brutal losses over the last decade – it very well might, and some polls even offer hope that Democrats are within striking distance. But, take it from us, it’s all unlikely to make a difference in terms of swinging the state back to Democrats. The best the Harris campaign can hope for is more in line with the cynical answer provided above: hope it draws Trump’s attention to shore up his own backyard, allowing Harris to outflank him in the Midwest. That, or pray the Taylor Swift-Democrats-Florida game of 3D chess masterminded by the illuminati comes to fruition. Either way, it would take a midsized miracle to throw Florida into Harris’ column.