Florida with it’s importing of Democrat’s from colder Northern and Midwestern states used to be someplace Democrats had a working chance with…
That would seem to be back in the day….
With Republican Governor DeSantis riding the horse there?
And ex-President Trump in the house?
Things have gotten Redder…..
Long the nation’s largest — and most unpredictable — battleground state, Florida’s politics have transformed at a breakneck pace in recent years, becoming more and more conservative even as hundreds of thousands of new residents have poured into the state, often from bluer territory.
The political sea-change happening in the Sunshine State owes to a perfect storm of circumstances — including shifting demographics and a poorly organized state Democratic Party.
But some also put a heavy emphasis on the pandemic, which they link to the population shift.
“There’s one word and it’s COVID,” said Nelson Diaz, a Republican lobbyist and former chair of the Miami-Dade County GOP. “It made red states redder and blue states bluer. It gave people like [Florida Gov.] Ron DeSantis a platform to stand for freedom and it gave Democrats in Democrat states a plan to stand for mandates.”
Diaz said that he believes that the state’s embrace of conservative policies has drawn many recent arrivals to Florida….
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Many of Florida’s new residents also appear to be coming from more Democratic-leaning states. In 2019 alone, an estimated 28,000 people moved to the Sunshine State from California; 28,000 moved from New Jersey, while a staggering 57,000 moved from New York, according to Census Bureau data from that year.
DeSantis has seized on the pandemic as a launching point for an ultra-conservative and ambitious policy agenda that has catapulted him to stardom among Republicans nationally and turned him into a prospective contender for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
Over the past two years, he has repeatedly bucked the advice of federal health officials in favor of a laissez-faire approach to the outbreak, earning him the praise of conservatives who have come to see Florida as a refuge from the pandemic-era restrictions and mandates imposed in other states.
Florida’s importance to the modern GOP has only increased since then. Now in his post-presidency, former President Trump has set up shop at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, drawing Republican candidates, donors and luminaries…