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Florida Republicans Overtake Democrats in Registered Voters

Florida Republicans Overtake Democrats in Registered Voters

Florida now has more registered Republicans than Democrats, undoing the Democratic party’s decades-old advantage in the nation’s largest swing state. 

Registered Republicans total around 5.1 million active voters as of the end of October, edging Democrats by around 4,000, according to the latest figures published by the Florida Division of Elections.

Florida Republicans Overtake Democrats in Registered Voters

Florida has long attracted conservative-leaning retirees, though many hail from Democratic bastions such as New York. The southern state also was a migration destination during the pandemic for younger, working-age people seeking to avoid Covid-19 restrictions and register children at in-person schools, but it’s less clear how significant their numbers are.

The shifts are driven to a significant degree by the purging of voter rolls that typically takes place after an election year -- removing the deceased and those who have moved, as well as those who have failed to vote in two general elections and were unresponsive to state correspondence.

Election margins are typically very close in Florida, but the Sunshine State has consistently elected Republicans as governor since the early 1990s. Democrats have also lost Florida in two straight presidential elections, with the margin worsening in 2020.

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