Florida voted for the victor in all five presidential elections from 1996 through 2016. Famously, the Sunshine State voted for former President George W. Bush by 0.061 percent, the smallest margin of victory ever recorded in a presidential election.
Then, the state voted for former President Donald Trump by a comfortable margin in 2020, and it re-elected Gov. Ron DeSantis by a landslide two years later.
This year, Democrats see an opening, and President Joe Biden bought some expensive ads Tuesday.
However, DeSantis has a message: You’re living in the past.
“Florida is off the board. It is a Republican state,” DeSantis told Maria Bartiromo of Fox News on Sunday. “You’ve covered politics. We used to be a one-point state every election hung on: ‘How would Florida go?’ That is not true anymore, and I think that’s a good thing for the party.”
DeSantis went on Twitter to discuss the sheer extent of Florida’s demographic shift. “You’re talking about a million-plus voter registration shift,” DeSantis told Bartiromo.
Take a look —
DeSantis: #Florida Is "Off The Board," It Is A Red Statehttps://t.co/FhRSU49puT
"Today, we have close to 900,000 more registered #Republican than Democrat. So, you're talking about a million-plus voter registration shift." pic.twitter.com/X0ywFdZ5r2
— RCP Video (@rcpvideo) April 7, 2024
Prior to 2021, FL never had more registered Republicans than Democrats. Now, a million voter R registration advantage is within reach.
Hillsborough (Tampa) is about to flip from D to R, which will mean every county in the Tampa Bay market has a R advantage in this previously… https://t.co/oH8b1jc4Y2
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) April 4, 2024
The Democrats have seen an opening ever since two bombshell rulings by Florida’s Supreme Court.
More specifically, they take issue with the state Supreme Court’s decision to allow the legislature’s six-week restriction on abortion, and they’ve pounced on the court’s decision to allow a referendum on the issue.
Now, the Democrats are pouring money into Florida to reject the six-week proposal.
Liberal strategists have pointed out the Democrats’ electoral success on other abortion-related initiatives, including referenda in conservative constituencies like Kansas and Kentucky.
Plus, some national Democrats have blamed Florida’s rightward tilt on the past failures of state-level Democrats, rather than any popularity for conservative causes. After all, Democrat candidates for president tended to outperform Democrat candidates for governor.
Some have even characterized the six-week proposal as out of touch with the wishes of Florida conservatives, many of them comfortable with the 15-week law currently in place. In recent years, referenda have even enfranchised ex-felons and raised the state’s minimum wage to $15.
Republican pollster Neil Newhouse sounded the alarm about the court’s abortion ruling. “This puts Florida in play,” Republican pollster Neil Newhouse told the Associated Press.
Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez told reporters, “We’re clear-eyed about how hard it will be to win Florida, but we also know that Trump does not have it in the bag.”
Not everyone remains convinced.
Republican pollster Adam Geller worked for Trump’s campaign in 2020, and he described Florida as “obviously a more Republican state” than Kansas and Kentucky.
After all, Democrat governors recently won their re-elections in both those states, and Republicans won every statewide office in Florida mere months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
“What Biden has now in 2024 is the burden of defending his record the last four years,” Geller told the Associated Press. “With all of the things he has to defend in the last four years, abortion is simply going to get watered down and it’s going to get lost in the context of these other issues.”
When asked about the six-week restriction set to take effect, Trump said, “We’ll be making a statement next week on abortion.”
Sure enough, Trump announced his abortion plan on Monday. He plans to leave the issue to the states.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.